


It Happens

by thelesterfam (phananddragonsfics)



Series: It Happens [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, High School, M/M, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Strangers to Lovers, Tutoring, sick!Dan, tutor!phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-01-22 00:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 75,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12469100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phananddragonsfics/pseuds/thelesterfam
Summary: Phil Lester is one of the brightest students in his class, with good friends, good grades, and a good reputation. When he gets an assignment to complete ten hours of service during a semester of class, he gets asked to tutor someone in his grade, Dan Howell. But there's something Dan isn't telling him: a reason for why he always shows up late (if he shows up at all), why he gets sick all the time, and why in the world he carries around a giant bottle of hand sanitizer wherever he goes.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh! The first chapter of my new multi-shot! I'm so excited to share this with you all, and I hope you all will enjoy it!
> 
> For future chapters, I will be putting warnings in these little notes, so be on the lookout for those!

Philip Michael Lester has never been called to the principal’s office before. Never once in his entire life…until today.

He has always been an excellent student – he has high grades, he has a good group of friends, and never _once_ has he gotten in trouble.

…okay, maybe there have been a _few_ times when he doesn’t have his uniform shirt tucked in, but that’s as bad as it gets, really.

He cannot recall a single time where he has done something _actually wrong_ during school. He doesn’t really do anything out-of-the-ordinary: he sits in the T-zone in all of his classes, he answers questions if he is called on (but not always if the question is open for the entire class to answer), and he turns in all of his homework in on time, always done to the best of his ability (which is exceptional).

He is a good student. So why in the world was he being sent to the principal’s office?

Well, at least he gets to miss out on Mrs. Rich’s long, drawn-out explanation of the layers of the skin in anatomy and physiology class. Even though he’s a good student, he does not always enjoy listening to lectures. Especially hers, where she takes her slow time going through the notes, always dropping in stories of her grandchildren or whatever. She expects you to learn things by doing that. It doesn’t exactly work.

But Mrs. Rich, bless the old woman’s heart, had gotten a phone call in the middle of her explanation of what the meaning of the word “epidermis” means, and she not-so-subtly looked over at Phil and said “ _oh, yes, Philip is here…oh, does he? Oh…oh, yes, I’ll send Philip Lester down. Thank you_ ” quite loudly before hanging up the phone, relaying the message _once again_ that Phil needed to be seen by the principal.

Of course, Phil got some snickers from his group of friends, who were all sitting near him. Joe and Caspar, being the dicks that they are, did the stupid “oooh” noise that everyone did during primary school, which only caused the others to laugh even harder.

Mrs. Rich kindly told them to be quiet, and Phil silently packed away his binder of notes in his backpack. He slung it over his shoulder and headed out of the classroom, his phone vibrating in his pocket, probably with texts from his friends making fun of him. It’s just who they are. What did Phil expect from them? Nothing less, really.

And now he’s walking up to the front office of the school, having a constant of rush of _oh dear God what did I do wrong_ going through his head. Because he can’t recall anything he did wrong.

He looked down, making sure his shirt was tucked in, and indeed it was. So surely it wasn’t that. And even if it _was_ , why would he be sent to the principal’s office for it? Okay, yeah, there might have been around three times last week when he didn’t tuck it in, but it’s only the first month of school after summer break. Give it a rest until at least three months in.

Anyway, he steps into the office, greets the secretaries with a smile, and they direct him to the principal’s office, whose door is directly behind their desk.

Taking a deep breath, and trying not to seem too scared or panicky, he opens the door, steps inside, and sees his school principal, Mrs. Murphy, sitting at her desk, staring at her computer screen. She looks up when she hears Phil enter the room.

“Oh, hello, Phil!” she greets enthusiastically, which just sends even more mixed signals through Phil’s brain. Why does she sound so happy? Is she glad that Philip Lester has finally gotten in trouble? Is that what kind of cruel, sick world they live in now?

“You can take a seat right there,” she continues, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk.

 _It’s probably booby-trapped_ , Phil thinks to himself as he slowly sets down his backpack on the floor, and then hesitantly sits down on the seat. It’s normal. Definitely not booby-trapped…or so as far as Phil can tell.

There’s definitely something suspicious going on.

Mrs. Murphy folds her hands neatly on the desk and smiles at Phil. “How are you doing today, Phil?”

Phil blinks. “Um…fine,” he says. “How are you?”

“I’m doing well, thank you,” she replies.

Then she just doesn’t talk. She just looks at Phil, as if he’s meant to say something. But what is he supposed to say? “Hey, how’s that principaling going?” Probably not.

So, he awkwardly clears his throat. “Um…am I in trouble?” he asks.

To Phil’s surprise, she starts laughing. “No, of course not!” she says.

Well, that sends a wave of relief throughout Phil’s body. He settles more comfortably in the seat, feeling tension release. “Um…then why did you call me in?”

She shuffles a few of the papers she has on her desk. “You’re in the English Composition I class with Mr. Simpson, correct?”

Phil nods his head. He has that first period. It’s honestly the worst way to start his day – being awake at 7:30 in the morning and having to answer questions that are pretty stupid, like “what is the definition of a sentence”. Literally. He asked Phil that just the other day. He also had Louise define what the word “word” means. Literally.

And Phil is good at English – he can write a really good paper in probably under two hours or so, and he’ll still get pretty good markings on it. It’s just the class itself that makes him want to pull his hair out.

“And you were given an assignment about service, correct?”

Phil nods his head again. It was given last week, probably on Thursday or Friday.

_Mr. Simpson grins widely as he passes out a stack of papers to each row in the classroom. It’s like a look of pure evil – that piece of paper has a lot of writing on it. What the hell is he going to make them do? Write a novel?_

_Mr. Simpson starts explaining the assignment as everyone takes one sheet and passes it to the next person._

_“This will be a semester-long assignment,” he explains, and Phil can hear people giving sighs of relief when they hear that, as they were probably assuming that it was going to be due next week._

_“That does not mean hold it off until December and the week before finals,” he continues, looking around the room as he looks at people as they stare at the piece of paper. “This will be something you all will be working on for the entire semester. It is a service project.”_

_Service? This is an English class. What does service have to do with English class?_

_“Can anyone define the word ‘service’ for me? Louise?” Mr. Simpson always calls on random people to answer his questions, but he has such a terrible memory that he always ends up accidentally calling on the same five people every time. Phil is unfortunately one of those people, and so is Louise._

_Louise, one of Phil’s close friends, shuffles in her seat and clears her throat. “It’s…it’s doing something good for another person,” she says._

_“What is ‘doing something good’? What does that mean, Louise? Elaborate, please.” Elaborate is Mr. Simpson’s favorite word in the entire world, but it’s everyone else’s least favorite._

_Louise’s face turns bright red. “Well, it’s…it’s helping the other person out in some way, I guess. It could be…I guess…working at a food pantry or…something like that.”_

_Mr. Simpson nods his head, which is a good sign. Louise sits back in her seat, letting out an audible sigh of relief._

_“Service is, as Louise defined it, helping out another person for a good cause. It doesn’t always have to be as big as working at a food pantry or going to a homeless shelter; it can be something as little as holding a door open for someone or helping someone who is lost._

_“But, for this project, yes, we are going to be focusing more on the ‘big’ service projects,” he continues. “Philip, would you like to name a few examples of some ‘big’ service projects?”_

_Phil twists his pencil around in his fingers. He hates it when people call him “Philip”. It sounds way too formal. But no matter how many times he tells teachers to not call him that, they still do. “Um…I guess, like…picking up litter in a park…um…cleaning someone’s house…stuff like that?” He knows that’s a BS answer, but it’s the best he could think of under pressure._

_“And what is so special about service projects?”_

_Phil taps the bottom of his pencil on his desk, trying to think of some stupid answer that would satisfy him. There’s really not a lot he can say. “Um…you’re…doing good for others and not for yourself?”_

_Mr. Simpson nods. “Well, that wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but yes.” Phil sits back in his seat and shakes his head. What else was he looking for? “What I want to clarify for you all is that all of this will be done without being paid.” Some people groan again. “Mowing your elderly neighbor’s lawn for fifteen dollars doesn’t count as service. Service does not earn you money, but it instead earns you a feeling of accomplishment. A feeling of positivity. That is what service is meant to do for you._

_“So, for this assignment, you all will be doing ten hours of service.”_

_A few people in the back of the class grumble, and Mr. Simpson gives them an unamused expression, and then he goes back to explaining the assignment._

_“Ten hours of community service. It seems like a lot, yes, but if you truly find a project you enjoy, I am positive time will fly by. You can pick any number of projects to do, but it must add up to ten.”_

_Caspar leans over to Phil and whispers, “So does this mean I can just make up shit and call it good?” in his ear. Phil shrugs his shoulders._

_“You must get signatures, phone numbers, and emails from whoever you are helping, as you can see from the back of this assignment sheet,” Mr. Simpson answers for Phil as he takes up PJ’s sheet of paper and shows the chart on the back, where there are open spaces for the project’s name, email, phone number, et cetera._

_“So, I can make up companies and phone numbers?” Caspar asks Phil again._

_“I will personally be checking in with each of your so-called community service projects and be checking to make sure they are legitimate.”_

_“But I can put down your phone number or Joe’s and call it good.”_

_“And you all will be signing a form with your phone numbers and email addresses so I know you’re not asking for one of your friends to help you out.”_

_Caspar rolls his eyes. “Of fucking course,” he mumbles as he turns back to his desk again, resting his head in his hands._

_“At the end of this, you will all be writing a three-to-five-page essay about your service project, what you have learned from it, and what you think you have gained from it. That will be due on the first of December. That seems like a long time away and that you’ll be able to procrastinate all you want and still have all the time in the world to complete this assignment, but time will be ticking by quickly, and I can assure you that December will be coming up quickly._

_“So, get your projects sorted out as soon as possible. We’ll be having check-ins every now and again throughout the semester to make sure you all are on the right track. It’ll be a great assignment; I can assure you. All of you will be thanking me by the end of it. I can guarantee that.”_

_And Joe of course just has to say whatever is on his mind at the time: “I really don’t think I will.” And Phil whole-heartedly agreed._

And that was that. Phil hasn’t even thought about a possible project for him to do. He might work with Louise or PJ, or maybe even Caspar and Joe, but that hasn’t been confirmed. Perhaps Phil should just be worried about actually finding a project to do first.

Well, conveniently, Mrs. Murphy says to him, “I think I have a good service opportunity for you.”

Well, at least Phil isn’t in trouble.

“What is it?” Phil asks. He could really use all the help he can get in the world with this service project, because he doesn’t even know where to start.

“Well, Phil, you’re an exceptional student and you have wonderful marks,” she starts off, and Phil can almost feel his cheeks turn bright pink. “I’m sure a lot of students could take from your example. Which is why I think you would make a great tutor.”

Tutor? Phil, of all people, being a tutor?

He is literally the absolute worst person in the world to ask to be a tutor. He can’t explain anything for the life of him, and he can sometimes be pretty unorganized. He is the worst option for a tutor.

“The Student Success Center is looking for someone who would be willing to tutor someone in year twelve,” Mrs. Murphy continues. Phil is currently in year twelve as well. He wonders who they’re going to have him tutor. Phil would laugh at loud if it was one of his friends, but he knows they’re all doing fairly well with their schooling.

“He’s in major need of assistance. He’s really struggling right now, and I’m sure he could definitely use someone like you to help him out.” She shuffles through some more of her papers and pulls out one sheet. It looks like she printed off an email or something. She reads off of it. “His name is Daniel Howell, and he’s in desperate need of help with his academic work, and a tutor who is in year twelve would be preferable.”

“I don’t think he’s in any of my classes,” Phil points out. He’s never even heard of someone with that name before. “I don’t know him.”

“This is an opportunity to make a new friend as well, then,” Mrs. Murphy tells him, looking up from her sheet of paper. “I’m sure Daniel would appreciate that a lot.”

Phil sighs. He can’t say no to his principal, and he doesn’t really want to lie and say that he’s absolutely busy and can’t do it when really, he’s not except for filmography class, which doesn’t even really meet that often.

He has the time to do it, and apparently he also has the skills to do it. And, of course, he needs service hours for this stupid assignment. What could possibly go wrong?

“Um…okay, I’ll try to help out in any way that I can,” Phil says, not fully committing to the idea of being a tutor.

Mrs. Murphy grins widely at him. “Wonderful, Phil. I’m sure you’ll do a great job,” she says. She grabs a sticky note from the stack sitting by her desktop monitor, grabs a random pen, and scribbles down a note on it. “Why don’t you stop by the Student Success Center and get Daniel’s information? They should have it ready for you pretty quickly.”

She hands the sticky note to Phil, and it reads _Philip Lester to tutor year 12 Daniel Howell._ Phil puts it in his pocket and nods his head. “Alright,” he responds, not knowing what else to say.

“Thank you so much for your help, Phil. I’m sure Dan will greatly appreciate it.”

Phil nods his head and picks up his backpack from the floor. “No problem,” he replies. He stands up and slings his back over his shoulders.

They share their goodbyes before Phil turns away, walking out of the room.

What the hell did he just get himself into?


	2. Chapter Two

“ _Tutoring_?” Joe asks Phil with surprise and confusion written all over his face.

It’s after Mrs. Rich’s class, which Phil luckily got the chance to escape because he decided to make a stop at the Student Success Center to grab Daniel’s information – his school email and what classes he was in. Daniel apparently wasn’t at school today, so Phil won’t get to meet him today, but he was told that they were informing him that Phil was now his tutor.

And that, surprisingly, took a whole fifteen minutes, only interrupted by the bell ringing, signaling time for lunch to start. So, Phil luckily got to escape the talk about “what it means to be a good tutor” or whatever and got to head to the lunchroom, where he is now seated with his group of friends, who were obviously very curious about why Phil of all people was sent to the principal’s office.

And, as you can tell quite clearly, they’re a little confused.

Well, the people that are listening to the conversation. Zoe and Alfie are studying with each other for the French exam they have next period, Bryony and Wirrow are having their own conversation, and Louise, PJ, Caspar, and Joe are all not understanding why Phil was sent to the principal’s office for  _tutoring_.

Phil nods his head as he looks at Joe, who is reading the sheet Phil was given from the Student Success Center – a logging sheet, where he would take note of what he and Daniel did during their tutoring sessions. At the bottom of it, the secretary had written Daniel’s email address, and on the back of the sheet was his class list. Phil hadn’t even gotten a chance to look at it quite yet, as Joe had taken it the second he saw it, thinking it was a referral slip or something.

“You’re going to be a tutor?” Louise asks.

Phil shrugs his shoulders. “I mean, I’m going to try it out. Mrs. Murphy recommended me.”

“That’s such a huge accomplishment!” Louise exclaims merrily, placing a friendly hand on his back, patting him. “You should be proud of yourself!”

“Who’re you tutoring?” PJ asks, trying to look over at the sheet of paper, which Joe and Caspar are still inspecting curiously, but not keeping it at an angle to where PJ would also be able to read it.

“Some guy named Daniel,” Caspar answers before Phil can even say anything. Phil slumps his shoulders, trying to show his annoyance, but clearly Caspar isn’t looking at him, as he is still looking at Phil’s paper. “Who’s he? Never heard of him.”

“Apparently he’s in our grade, but I haven’t seen him around anywhere,” Phil says, shrugging his shoulders for the umpteenth time. “He’s not here today, though. They said he’s sick today and wasn’t coming in.”

“So are you going to tutor him?” Louise asks, looking at Phil intently. “You would be really good at it!”

PJ nods his head in agreement. “You’d be great.”

“Wait, are you actually going to go through with it?  _Tutoring_? That’s so boring,” Joe says before Phil can answer once again. This happens a lot, so everyone is honestly used to it.

“It’d be easy service hours for the English assignment,” Louise explains to him, nodding her head. “It’d be like doing some extra homework every once in a while.”

“Like that’s really enjoyable,” PJ says, snickering under his breath.

Phil hits his shoulder lightly, but he’s not bothered by his comment at all. Tutoring honestly doesn’t sound like that much fun – after all, like Louise said, it’s like doing extra homework. It’s having to explain everything even if you’re not entirely sure what you’re doing yourself. Phil honestly feels he would be the worst candidate for this, but he’s already agreed to try it out. So, there’s really no going back.

“But, yeah, I’m going to try it out,” Phil replies. “And, yeah, it’ll count as service hours.”

“But hold on a second,” Caspar says putting his hand up, halting Phil. He looks completely and utterly confused. “So you’re doing this for the class?”

Phil, PJ, and Louise all nod their heads. What else would Phil be doing this for? While Phil is a nice person, probably one of _the_  nicest people you will ever meet in your entire life, he would probably never openly offer to tutor someone. That’s not exactly something he would do.

Sure, he’ll help you if you need help with an assignment or if you have a question about something he’ll try his best to answer it clearly. But if you ask him to be your full-time tutor, he will politely decline unless you have the principal ask first.

Also, there are so many other smarter people that they could have chosen. Zoe has high grades, as does Louise and PJ and his other friends. Phil is sure they probably have higher grades than him in some classes.

Maybe it’s one of those “you’re usually the quiet kid in class, so why not step out of your comfort zone and tutor someone” kind of thing. But, that wouldn’t really make sense, as they usually do that for people who don’t really have a lot of friends in a class or something. Phil has a pretty decently sized group of friends. He might not be as close with some of them, as he is mostly close with Louise and PJ, but they’re all still his friends. But it’s clear to his teachers that he has friends.

So, yeah, Phil literally has no clue whatsoever, but he’ll take it. It’ll be easy service hours.

And mostly because he can’t say no. He really needs to work on that.

Caspar sits back in his seat, setting down the sheet of paper. Phil reaches over the length of the table to grab it while Caspar processes things. Apparently it is a bit difficult to understand the concept of tutoring someone for service hours for English class.

“Wait…so we’re not all torturing ourselves with service together?” Caspar questions, searching his friends’ eyes, seeking confirmation for his question.

PJ shakes his head. “I was planning on working at the food shelter a couple nights during the week.”

“And I was planning on helping out at an after-school program at a primary school,” Louise adds.

Caspar furrows his eyebrows. “Wait…so we  _aren’t_  working together  _and_  you guys have already figured out what you’re doing?”

The three of them nod their heads. “Better to get it done now than have to do it all at the last minute,” PJ reminds him. “Don’t want to feel that guilt when Simpson keeps asking us how far we’ve gotten on the final project.”

“And those meetings that we’ll have,” Louise adds.

“But we’re not doing it all together? We’re not suffering as a group? I’m meant to do this on my own?”

Joe pats Caspar’s shoulder roughly and smiles at him. “You can join me!” he suggests.

Louise sputters and laughs at the thought of that. “Oh my God, you guys would be the  _worst_  partners for this!” she exclaims. “You’d wait until the literal  _last second_  before either of you bothered to do anything!”

Joe frowns and points an accusatory finger at Louise. “I’ve been getting better! I’ve been waiting until  _at least_  two seconds before it’s due before I do something!”

Louise nods and rolls her eyes before turning to Phil, resting her head on her hand. “So?”

Phil furrows his eyebrows. “…so what?”

She looks shocked that Phil doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She taps the sheet of paper laid by Phil’s lunch tray. “Are you going to email him?”

Phil snickers and shakes his head. “It sounds like you’re trying to get me to ask him out on a date or something.”

“I mean…”

Phil deadpans. “Lou, come on…”

Louise puts her arms out in defense. “You never know! He might be cute!”

“I’ve never met him before!” Phil whisper-exclaims.

“Still! You never know!” Louise says, scooting her chair closer to Phil’s, meaning she doesn’t want anyone else to hear the conversation. She drops her voice to a lower volume and places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Phil, you and I both know you haven’t been as…well… _happy_  since…” she looks off to the side and shrugs her shoulders, “you know.”

Phil rolls his eyes. “Louise, seriously…”

“No, I know Charlie was a…insert word I shouldn’t say at school here, and I know you think the same thing-“

“Louise-“

“-but you just haven’t seemed the happiest since you two broke up.”

Phil sighs and slumps his shoulders. Over the summer, Phil and his boyfriend, Charlie, broke up abruptly, without any warning, and it was such a surprise to everyone who knew they were dating. They had been friends probably since the beginning of secondary school, and it was always pretty obvious that Phil had a crush on him. And, at the beginning of year eleven, Charlie started to reciprocate those feelings, and he asked Phil out on a date, their relationship starting right then.

They had been together for nearly a year, which of course is pretty long for teenagers, but they decided to break it off over the summer.

It was Charlie who did it, but Phil had been expecting it. Charlie claimed it was because he didn’t want their relationship to get in the way of school or other commitments, but really, it was because he didn’t want the commitment and wanted to see other people.

Phil knew it wasn’t going to last. He’d known for a while. They were happy of course when they first got together, and they were basically inseparable, but over time, Phil just wasn’t feeling happy with it because he knew this wasn’t a relationship that was meant to last a long time.

But he was never brave enough to break up with him, as he didn’t want to hurt Charlie’s feelings (despite Charlie probably not giving a shit, as that’s just the kind of person he is), but Phil was still constantly worried about that and battling that fear inside him, which caused him to end up waiting until  _Charlie_  broke up with  _him_.

And even though it was all inevitable, it still hurt. Any breakup hurts, no matter if the relationship lasted for one year or one week.

And the breakup occurred right at the beginning of the summer holiday, for obvious reasons on Charlie’s part, but it left Phil to spend most of his summer by himself, holed up in his room, only occasionally leaving his house, such as if Louise or PJ or any of the others dragged him out to socialize.

So, yeah, Louise isn’t wrong with the fact that he hasn’t exactly been the happiest since his breakup with Charlie. Before, he was always smiley and talkative and had this light in his eyes, but now it’s almost dulled down.

But Phil is doing fine. He swears he’s fine. He isn’t as bothered by it now that school has begun again and he has things to distract him like schoolwork and now tutoring, so he’s sure he’ll be fully recovered in no time.

But he’s fine. He swears.

“That was a few months ago, Louise. I’m fine,” Phil says, shaking his head, desperately wanting to change the subject.

Louise doesn’t look convinced.

“And even if I wasn’t, I don’t think dating someone so soon after would help at all.”

Louise still doesn’t look convinced. Not that Phil was expecting her to be.

“I don’t need to be in a relationship to be happy, Lou. I appreciate you caring for me, I really do, but I’m fine. I promise.”

Louise shrugs her shoulders. “I mean, I wasn’t implying that, I was just saying…”

“And maybe he’s not interested. Straight. Not single.”

“And maybe he’s not.”

“Louise, I haven’t even met him yet. Literally. I have no idea who he is” Phil says. “I know literally nothing about him besides his name and his class schedule. I don’t even know what he looks like.”

Louise pats his back affectionately. She’s always had a motherly attitude towards her friends, always wanting to cheer them up and make them feel better.

She was one of the first people Phil came out to, and she literally held him and let him cry on her shoulder (as he had gotten so emotional while telling her), and she comforted him as he let out all of his feelings and emotions. And then, of course, she started trying to find him guys to date. That part got a little over-bearing, but he would never tell her that; she’s too proud of herself for it.

When Charlie and Phil first broke up, Louise was one of the people who would always come by Phil’s house to make sure he was alive and would drag him out of bed to go out and do things that don’t involve staying at home. Phil owes a lot of his recovery to her helping him.

“I’m just trying to help you out because I know you’ve been hurting recently.”

Phil slumps his shoulders. Louise knows just how to tug on his heartstrings, and he can’t help but drop his annoyed guard and give her a small smile. “I do appreciate it, Lou. But I’m just not quite ready yet.”

Louise squeezes his shoulder and smiles at him. “Well, when you are, you know you can always come to me. I know plenty of guys who would be inte-“

“ _Louise_!”  


	3. Chapter Three

That evening, Phil lays in his bed, waiting for his mum to call him down for dinner. He browses the internet for a bit, as he had gotten lucky today and already did all his homework while he was at school. So, he really has nothing to do besides aimlessly browse the internet for a few hours until he should go to bed.  

He opens up his school email after watching most of his YouTube subscriptions’ videos that were posted while he was at school. He sees a few emails from teachers, reminding them of assignments and tests that are coming up soon, and then of course the emails of people begging others to come to their club meetings, as they “desperately need more members”. Phil, though he feels somewhat bad about it, deletes all of those emails.

Phil sighs and glances over to his side, his backpack sitting open on the edge of his bed, the paper with all the tutor information written on it. He reaches over and pulls it out, skimming through all the things that are printed on it, rules for being a tutor and things to consider, when tutoring someone. He shakes his head and continues scanning the sheet, seeing that at the bottom of the paper, Daniel’s school email address written in cursive.

He sighs and sets it aside, turning back to his computer screen.

He decides to send Daniel a quick email to set up a time for their first meeting. Because if he’s going to do this tutoring thing, he might as well get it done and over with while he can so he doesn’t have to worry about it for too long.  

And Phil isn’t saying he’s just going to tutor the guy for a total of ten hours and then quit, since that’s all he needs to do for his project. He wouldn’t do that at all – that’s the worst possible thing to do and something Phil would never dream of doing.

But perhaps just tutoring enough to where Daniel will start to feel comfortable with his material on his own would be good, and then maybe Daniel will tell him he doesn’t need a tutor anymore. And Phil can stop, hopefully having enough service hours to do the assignment.

Because that’s how things work, right? Right? This is probably not going to work out how he wants it to at all because that’s just how life works for him.

He composes a short note to Daniel.

 **To:** howelldanielj@mas.co.uk  
**From:** lesterphilipm@mas.co.uk  
**Cc/Bcc:  
Date: ** 17 Sept 18:56 ****  
Subject: Tutoring

Daniel-

Hi! My name is Phil Lester, and I was asked by the Student Success Center at school to be your tutor, in case you weren’t informed about that already. I was wondering if we could set up a time sometime soon, depending on your schedule of course, to meet up and start working together. Please let me know as soon as you can.

Thanks!

-Phil Lester

Phil looks it over a few more times, checking to make sure it is typ-free before clicking the “send” button. He minimizes the window and goes back to going through different articles online about corgis because that’s how he enjoys spending his free time.  

It’s not that late, but Phil figures it’s technically _pretty_ late to be sending emails via your school account. Really, no one in the school ever checks their school emails, if Phil is being honest. Phil does if he’s bored or if that’s just what his fingers automatically type into the browser without Phil thinking about it, but everyone else probably has thousands of emails stocked up in there from years of not checking it.

There’s never really that important of information shared on it anyway, so why bother checking it?

So maybe Daniel won’t respond right away. Or at all. Maybe Phil will just be able to escape this whole situation and not have to do anything with it.

Maybe Daniel doesn’t even want a tutor. Maybe it’s one of those situations where his parents or parent is making him get a tutor because they think he is struggling. Phil’s not too sure of the whole situation, and perhaps it’s just none of Phil’s business. But, Phil will be honest – he is almost hoping that Daniel will reject his offer.

Before he can do anything more on the internet, Phil’s mum calls him down from the kitchen, telling him that dinner is ready. Phil closes out of his laptop and gets up off the bed, heading out of his room hopefully to forget about this all for a little bit.

\---------------------------------------

He returns to his room around an hour and a half later. It was just him and his mum at dinner tonight – his dad had a late meeting and Martyn was having dinner over at Cornelia’s house. It has been a while since the whole family sat down for dinner together, but unfortunately everyone is just so busy at different times that time just doesn’t seem to allow for it to happen.

But they’re “never going to be the kind of family who eats dinner in separate rooms”, Phil’s mum would always say. She’s a traditionalist – she likes doing things like that, like having dinner together, putting up Christmas decorations on the first of December, things like that. She likes the “traditional” family stuff. She’s very passionate about it, really: almost too passionate. But they all love her for it.

But after helping with the dishes, Phil climbed back up the stairs and went back into his bedroom, claiming he had an exam to study for, when really, he was going back to go on a Wikipedia Odyssey.

However, when he opened up his laptop and saw his opened webpages, he saw that he had left his school email up instead of closing it. He brings it up, preparing to close it down and log out, but he gets side-tracked when he sees a new email: one from Daniel Howell.

Phil is tempted to delete it forever and claim he never got it, but he hates lying. The guilt feeling is too much for him to handle, in all honesty. So, he can’t just forget about it and act like he never got it.

Plus, that would be unfair to Daniel if he really, really needs a tutor.

So, letting out a long sigh, Phil clicks on the email and reads it.

 **To:** lesterphilipm@mas.co.uk  
**From** : howelldanielj@mas.co.uk  
**Cc/Bcc:  
Date: ** 17 Sept 19:12 ****  
Subject: Re: Tutoring

wow that email was really formal lol no offence ofc but it just kinda made me laugh I guess lol

yeah i do need a tutor i guess it would be helpful so thanks for offering and whatever

um but can we text instead bc emails are too formal lol i think texting is easier anyways and also then i dont have to rely on crappy internet connection XD

heres my phone number and you can text me n stuff fuck what am i doing you know how phone numbers work lol

just text me whenever and we can set up things n stuff i guess

(also you can call me dan you don’t have to call me daniel it’s too formal XD)

sooooooo yeah 

-dan

Phil feels his face turn bright red. Perhaps he was a little bit too “formal”, as Dan worded it. After all, his mindset was like he was emailing a teacher or someone of the sort who would be keeping mental note of every grammatical error Phil made.

But wow – that email was almost impossible to read. Phil is pretty sure Dan is doing this almost ironically, as all of his spelling is correct, but there is literally no grammar resent in there at all. But he _must_ know if he’s the same age as Phil.

Then again, Phil actually does his homework.

Then again, he doesn’t know Dan’s issue.

So…he really shouldn’t assume.

He types in Dan’s phone number into his phone, setting him up as a contact.

 **Phil**  
Hey, this is Phil  
(19:43)

He waits a few seconds, anxious for some reason. He keeps exiting out of the app, turning it back on, and then closing out again. He does this several more times before setting his phone aside, opening up his laptop again. He just manages to type in his password before he feels his phone buzz beside him.

He reaches over and picks it up, seeing a notification from Dan and pushes his laptop aside. He grabs his phone and turns it back on, seeing a message from Dan.

 **Dan**  
sup  
(19:45)

Phil shakes his head.

 **Phil**  
So we should probably set up a time to start tutoring  
(19:45)

He waits a few seconds, the “read at 19:45” little icon appearing underneath his message, followed shortly thereafter with the three dots, meaning Dan was texting him back.

 **Dan**  
thatd probably be smart  
(19:46)

Before Phil can even type back some kind of response, Dan is messaging him again.

 **Dan**  
i mean im sure we can just meet up mañana for the tutoring  
(19:46)

Phil takes a few seconds to look up what “mañana” means.

 **Phil**  
Yeah tomorrow would work fine with me  
(19:47)

 **Dan**  
cool beans  
(19:47)

 **Phil**  
Would after school in the library work?  
(19:48)

Dan doesn’t reply right away. The message is stuck on “delivered” for around thirty seconds. Phil keeps his eyes trained on his screen, waiting for any sort of indication that Dan has read his message, but he doesn’t. Phil sets his phone down and goes back to his laptop for a short while, typing away and inevitably spending a whole half-hour wasting time while waiting for Dan’s response.

He checks his phone again after that, still seeing no response from him. He sighs before getting up out of his bed. He walks over to his desk and plugs in his phone, setting it face down. He’s sure he’ll get some indication from him in the morning.

\---------------------------------

Phil sits in the library at half-past three, sitting at the very back table, waiting for Dan to come in. He had woken up that morning to a text from Dan that yes, he could make it after school to start tutoring. So, here Phil is: waiting for him to come in.

School let out at three.

He’s been in here for half-an-hour, just sitting around and waiting for Dan to come find him. He’s gotten his readings done and managed to make half a stack of flashcards for his anatomy vocabulary quiz he has next week. He and the middle-aged librarian are the only people in here.

Perhaps Dan was a transfer and doesn’t quite know his way around the school. But it’s kind of hard to miss the library, considering there is a big sign above the double-doors that reads, you guessed it: “library”.

But if he didn’t know where it was, wouldn’t he have notified Phil? Or was it some kind of pride thing where he doesn’t want Phil to know that he doesn’t know his way around the school?

Phil should really just stop assuming things.

Phil sighs and pulls out his phone. He had texted Dan telling him that he was in the library waiting for him. Really, if Dan had come in on time, they would already be halfway through their first session together. But, it seems like that isn’t the plan for today.

He texts Dan, asking him where he is. He then sighs and sits back in his chair, twiddling his mechanical pencil between his fingers. He taps it against the table a few times, and then sets it aside, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Everything alright back there, Philip?” the librarian asks him.

Phil sighs and turns on his phone again, seeing no response from him. This guy must be a really, really bad texter. That’s what Phil assumes, at least. Because he takes the longest time to finally reply to something.

He shakes his head and starts packing up his backpack. “I’m fine. I was just about to leave.”

“Were you waiting for someone?”

Phil hesitates for a few moments, but inevitably ends up shaking his head again.

“Nope.”


	4. Chapter Four

**Dan**  
im so sorry omg i am really sorry   
(23:42)

That is what Phil wakes up to the following morning.

So, apparently, it took Dan around eight hours to realize that he had missed his and Phil’s meeting in the library for studying. Or it took him eight hours to sum up the courage to text Phil after having bailed on him or something like that.

Seriously; Phil really needs to stop making assumptions.  

Blinking some of the sleep out from his eyes, he starts typing out a response to Dan.

 **Phil**  
It’s alkbgood what time you wanttomeet   
(6:23)

He doesn’t expect Dan to respond right away; it’s near six in the morning, so Phil assumes there’s no way Dan is awake at this hour. He can’t imagine another person his age is even _thinking_ about waking up right now.

However, he is quickly awakened when a group of texts all from Dan show up on his screen in a row. Phil is obviously fairly astonished – Phil actually woke up quite early this morning – he really didn’t need to wake up for another hour, as school starts at 7:45 and it’s around a five-minute walk from his house.

But someone else being up at nearly 6:30 in the morning just doesn’t seem right.

Now, far more awake than he was a few seconds ago, Phil reads Dan’s messages.

 **Dan**  
wow youre still up too XD  
(6:24)

well yeah i think we should meet today  
(6:24)

that would work fine  
(6:24)

shit you asked when   
(6:25)

im such an idiot XD  
(6:25)

uhhhh after school would be fine  
(6:25)

Phil furrows his eyebrows. He’s “still up”? Does that mean Dan has been up _all night_? What was he doing, especially it being on a school night?

God, Phil is turning into his mum.

But seriously!

Yeah, sure, Phil stays up late quite a lot, but only rarely, and never on a school night, does he stay up for an entire night. It’s usually on holidays when he and his friends are marathoning movies or entire Netflix shows. And even then, when he says he’ll stay up the entire night, he’ll usually fall asleep about halfway through it, exhaustion taking over his entire body.

Phil wouldn’t be surprised if Dan doesn’t show up again. He wouldn’t _blame_ him, really.

Once again, before he can even reply, Dan messages him again.

 **Dan**  
i promise ill be there this time XD  
(6:25)

i mean i may not be like awake but whatever  
(6:25)

but ill be there  
(6:25)

Phil shakes his head and finds himself not being able to hold back a smile.

 **Phil**  
I’ll be expecting you then :D  
(6:25)

 **Dan**  
waiting for me w your cat in your lap lol “ive been expecting you”   
(6:25)

 **Phil**  
If I wasn’t allergic to cats lol  
(6:26)

 **Dan**  
wow that totally sucks  
(6:26)

cuz like cats are cool man  
(6:26)

but then again im more of a dog person anyway  
(6:26)

…  
(6:26)

youre not allergic to dogs either tho right  
(6:26)

 **Phil**  
nope! Just felines   
(6:26)

 **Dan**  
good  
(6:26)

i was worried for you there  
(6:26)

because a life wo dogs isnt a life worth living XD  
(6:26)

 **Phil**  
truer words have never been spoken :D  
(6:27)

 **Dan**  
that is what i do  
(6:27)

speak the truth  
(6:27)

anyway  
(6:27)

i should probably get some sleep before school starts XD  
(6:27)

but ill see you in the library after school?  
(6:27)

 **Phil**  
Yep! See you then!  
(6:28)

 **Dan**  
cool beans  
(6:28)

Phil plugs in his phone and goes back to his bed, lying down on his back, hoping to do the same thing as Dan – get some sleep.

For some reason, it feels like it’s going to be a long day. **  
** \-----------------------------------------------

Once again after school, Phil sits alone in the library at the very back table, his textbooks laid out in front of him as he messily scribbles notes onto the ages of his notebook.

It’s 3:15. School got out fifteen minutes ago, and Dan had promised him that morning that he would actually come to tutoring today.

Phil chuckles inside his head. And he thought _he_ was going to be late, since he got stopped by Louise in the hallway because she needed to ask him something, and they ended up talking for five minutes.

Well, he was wrong with his assuming that he himself was going to be the one to be late.

He sighs and flips to the next page in his textbook, skimming through the paragraphs for any important information that he thinks he should write down. He rests his chin in his hand as his eyes shift back and forth from the book to his paper, stifling a yawn as he does so.

He hears the doors to the library creak open after three minutes, and Phil glances up, seeing a guy his age walking into the room. His uniform shirt is untucked, his tie is loose, and he is casually holding his backpack on one shoulder.

He has curly brown hair and, from what Phil can see, matching brown eyes. He’s tall, probably around the same height as Phil (which is _very_ tall), but his shoulders are hunched forward, as if he’s trying to make himself seem smaller.

He looks around the room for a few brief moments before his eyes land on Phil. Phil smiles at him and waves awkwardly, hoping that this is Dan.

It turns out he is, as he waltzes over to the table hastily and drops his backpack down. The first thing that catches Phil’s attention, besides the loud noise his bag makes when it presses against the table, is the giant bottle of hand sanitizer in the water bottle holder. A little odd, yeah, but Phil won’t judge.

“So sorry,” Dan says, out of breath and shaking his head. His voice isn’t necessarily what Phil was expecting – his voice seems very posh and very Southern. Then again, Phil realizes, Manchester is a large city and loads of people from different places live here. Perhaps Dan is new here, hence why Phil has never seen or met him before.

“I’m not that late, am I?”

Phil gestures to the clock hanging on the wall right beside them. “Around fifteen minutes,” he says, trying to make it seem like he’s not mad. Which he’s not. He’s just a little annoyed that Dan didn’t warn him that he was going to be this late.

Dan shakes his head again. “I’m so sorry.”

Phil shrugs his shoulders. “It’s okay. I always show up, like, half-an-hour late to movies in the cinema because my brother and I waste so much time in the arcade.” Not really the greatest thing to say when trying to reassure someone that them being late was fine, but it’s all Phil could think of.

Dan nods. “I’ll try and be better about it,” he says. “I just…um…got stopped by a…a teacher.” He clears his throat awkwardly afterwards. “Um…wanted to give me homework from what I missed yesterday. Um…I was really sick, so…”

Phil gestures to the hand sanitizer in his backpack. “Does that explain that?” he asks.

Dan peers around the backpack, looking at what Phil is referring to. His cheeks turn bright red and he clears his throat awkwardly once again. “Um…mum’s a germaphobe,” he says, laughing. “She’s…she…she, yeah, she forced me to bring a load of hand sanitizer with me to school. She’s…yeah, making sure I don’t…uh… _get those germs_ , y’know?”

“Got it,” Phil says, nodding his head a few times. He looks up at Dan, and then back down at the chair. “Um…you can sit down, you know. You don’t have to keep standing.”

Dan’s eyes widen, and he hastily takes his seat across from him. “Sorry,” he apologizes.

Phil shakes his head and smiles at him. “Why are you sorry?”

Dan shrugs. “Felt like saying it.”

“I should be the one apologizing as I failed to bring my non-existing dog,” Phil continues.

Instead of cringing at Phil’s bad attempt at a joke, Dan smiles. “Wow,” he replies, chuckling lightly. “I had such high hopes for you, and you’ve just failed me. Way to screw a guy over. I was looking forward to a dog, and now you’ve just ruined my entire day.”  

Phil shakes his head and smiles. “I’m the worst person.”

“Seriously. Like, all those serial killers or terrorists or whatever got _nothing_ on you. Saying you’ll bring a dog and then failing to fulfill that obligation is literally the worst thing a guy can do. Way to go. I had hopes for you. Insert that Tyra Banks meme here.”

Phil laughs and nods his head. “Her face in that makes me laugh so much, oh my God.”

Seriously: Phil was thinking about pretending to be completely pissed off at Dan and act like he was really mad for him thinking he was going to have to leave again, but how can he do that when he brings up classic memes?

“And now you’re making fun of people’s faces. What kind of horrible, no-good person are you?”

Phil tries to fight himself from laughing too hard. The librarian kindly asks them to be quiet (even though literally no one else is in the room for Dan and Phil to bother), and Dan and Phil both have to duck their heads and cover their mouths in order to keep themselves from bursting with laughter.

After a few moments of calming down, Phil clears his throat. “Well, I suppose we should get to what we’re actually meant to be here for,” he says, gesturing to his textbooks.

“But I like the meme talk,” Dan complains. “Can’t you explain geography using Pepes and stock photo images?”

Phil snickers as he flips to a blank sheet of paper in his notebook. “No promises. You seem to be more in-tune with memes than I am.” He only really knows of out-of-date ones that show up on his Facebook feed. At least he knew what meme Dan was referring to. He always feels like he’s just a little behind with everything. 

“I just spend my entire life on Tumblr,” Dan replies. “Great waste of around six hours of your life every day. 10 out of 10 would recommend.”

“I’ll consider,” Phil says as he looks down at the table, using his eraser to draw on the surface. He’s considered, but people always talk about how it’s a black hole of memes, shipping, and aesthetics. It’s like you just can’t get out of once you’re in.

He looks back up at Dan, who smiles at him.

Maybe this won’t be as bad as he thinks it’s going to be. After all, he and Dan seem to be getting along just fine, and this is only their first _real_ conversation. So surely this wasn’t going to go horribly? They seem like they have a very a natural flow with conversation, so that was a good sign. Maybe Phil was originally just letting his negativity get the best of him.

“I mean, you’ll be risking putting off studying and essays until the last minute, but it happens,” Dan adds. He shrugs his shoulders. “I blame my horrible grades on that.”

They finally get to studying a few minutes later, once Dan has finished a rant about how Tumblr is healthy for students and should be encouraged. But once he was done, he decided that it was finally time to start working.

And tutoring Dan wasn’t exactly what Phil was expecting it to be…actually, it wasn’t what he was expecting _at all_.

He was expecting it to be like Dan just doesn’t do his homework or wasn’t fully understanding the material.

But what it actually ended up being was Dan literally knew _none_ of the information for his classes, like what sections they were in or what they were learning about. He had the assignments, but he didn’t know how to do them.

“I get…um…I get sick a lot,” Dan explained to Phil after he told him about his situation. “I haven’t been at school a lot, and so it’s hard for me to get all the info.”

So, they spent the next hour going through, almost from the beginning of the semester, things that he needed to know and what things he needed to read and they managed, while doing that, to complete a few of his assignments that he hadn’t turned in yet but was getting a time extension to complete.

They didn’t start on any of the new material from today, or even from the beginning of the week, as they established together that the beginning of the year homework was far more important than the ones that he just received today.

They got some of it done, having a few laughs and tangents here and there, and Phil can honestly say that he did have some fun going through the stuff with Dan. Dan asked questions, made comments, and did everything that a good, astute person would do. So, he wasn’t like one of those people who just doesn’t do their homework; he’s clearly trying to fix his grades.

But soon, their hour of studying was up, the library in the school was about to close, so they headed out to the parking lot together.

“Do you walk home?” Dan asks as he stops in front of the gymnasium building, where he said his mum was going to pick him up, as his home is too far of a walk for him. It seems odd – this school is more set up as a neighborhood school, where everyone has the ability to walk to school. But, Phil thinks that doesn’t mean you have to live around to go here, so that must be Dan’s case.

Phil nods his head. “It’s only about a five-minute walk. Maybe we can study over there sometimes if you don’t want to annoy the librarian.”

Dan laughs. “We’ll get distracted _way_ too easily.”

Phil shrugs, agreeing with him and realizing just how distracting it could get being at Phil’s home. They would literally get nothing done, considering how many more distractions there would be at his house. “Yeah, probably.”

Dan blinks at him and looks down at the ground, kicking a pebble with his shoe. “Um…you don’t have to wait for my mum to come, you know. You can get headed on your way. My mum is only a few minutes away from here.”

“Are you fine waiting here on your own?”

Dan nods his head. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s fine.”

“Your mum wouldn’t kill me if she found out I left you waiting here by yourself?”

“Wouldn’t say a thing.” Dan pretends to lock his mouth closed and throw away the key.

“Or you’re just trying to get me to leave,” Phil jokes, sticking his tongue out from between his teeth.

Dan deadpans. “Yes, I absolutely despise you despite the fact that you literally just spent an hour of your life helping me get caught up with my homework that I haven’t finished since the start of the semester.”

Phil laughs. “Fair enough,” he replies, nodding his head. He then looks out to the entrance of the school parking lot and puts his hands in his pockets. “Well…um…how often do you want to meet? For…for the tutoring, I mean.”

“Um…well…it depends on how busy you are.”

Phil shakes his head. “I’m not busy at all. I’m free after school most days.” He sometimes goes to film club and, if he’s not busy during the late fall or during the spring, he’ll help out backstage at the drama club when they’re putting on their seasonal plays. But, since the summer, he has found himself going straight home after school, not feeling up to going to his normal clubs. He just hasn’t necessarily been in the mood for it.

Dan nods. “Um…every other day, maybe? Just so I can keep getting caught up faster?”

“Works for me,” Phil replies as he slowly starts walking down the sidewalk. “So…uh…I’ll catch you later?”

Dan smiles. “I’ll be sending you memes.”

“And I’ll be telling you to get started on that history essay.”

“Sounds like a plan!”

Phil laughs as he takes off down the sidewalk, adjusting his backpack straps as he does so. He strolls down the pavement, going out of the school grounds and on his way back to his house. A car pulls into the school parking lot right after Phil gets past the school gates, and he assumes it is Dan’s mum.

And when he’s around halfway down the hill, he spots the car come back out and head down towards Phil’s direction. As it passes by him, Phil glances into the window and sees Dan, who is staring out the window while it looks like his mum is talking quite exuberantly to him.

Right before the car fully passes him, Phil manages to smile and wave at Dan, but the car passes by before he can see if Dan noticed or reciprocated. 


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We did a kind-of poll on my Tumblr, and since I have the entirety of this fic completed, I asked how often they want updates, and we all agreed that daily updates would probably be best. 
> 
> So, be prepared for daily updates on this fic! :D

“Okay, so let me see if I’ve got this right…Homer wrote this scene with Zeus and Hera to show the corruption of the Grecian monarchy.”

“Yes.”

“And he does this through the gods and goddesses.”

“Yes.”

“Specifically Zeus and Hera.”

“Correct.”

“And Homer was basically saying ‘fuck you’ to the Grecian government and was basically trying to imply all the flaws that are in it, so he used this fanfiction to do it.”

“I mean…yes?”

It’s another day after school, only about a week or so after he and Dan first started working together. They meet up every other day in the library and go over things that Dan doesn’t understand, work on homework together, and often times find themselves going on huge tangents, discussing things that have no academic purpose but that are just fun to discuss anyway.

It’s fun, surprisingly. Phil didn’t think he would enjoy waiting to meet up with someone after school for an hour, but here he is, having a fun time.

And Dan has luckily, for Phil, been showing up at the right time every single day that they’ve done this, which clearly shows his interest in wanting to get his homework completed from when he was ill at the beginning of the year.

Phil is currently helping Dan study for his history exam that he has the following day over _The Iliad._ They’ve found themselves situated in a small cubby they’ve never noticed before, which is hidden back behind two bookshelves, where they can be louder than they would normally be allowed if they were sitting at a desk in the main part of the library.

They’re on the floor, Dan on his stomach with his notebook and readings out, and Phil sat cross-legged in front of him, his own readings  on the floor out so he can help Dan.

Dan points to various paragraphs in his readings with the bottom of his pen. “So to do this, he shows Hera as a bitch-“

“I wouldn’t put that in your essay.”

“-and Zeus as a dickhead.” Dan frowns and clicks his pen a few times. “Or, I guess…wouldn’t he be a vagina head? Didn’t he have a vagina on his forehead or something? I thought I read somewhere that he give birth to, like, Aphrodite or someone through his forehead.”

“Athena, but that’s off-topic.”

“Whatever. Anyway, so Homer has Hera being all deceitful and shit, wanting to have sex with Zeus just because she wants to, like, help out with the Trojan War or something like that. She’s, like, saying she’ll fuck him and whatever and then she’ll get that sleep god-“

“Sleep.”

“-so original – to help her out and then she’ll do the thing.”

Phil shrugs his shoulders. “I mean, basically. But how is Sleep portrayed?”

Dan clicks his pen thrice as he bites on his bottom lip, trying to remember from the reading. “Um…wasn’t he, like, telling Hera that he wouldn’t do it because, like, he doesn’t want to get on Zeus’s bad side, but then Hera was like ‘yo, I’ll get you a hot girlfriend if you do it’, and Sleep was like ‘oh, shit, yeah, I’ll put our king to sleep for you now’ or something like that?”

“Yeah.”

“So, he’s, like, your stereotypical straight guy who only will do things if he’ll get a girl out of it. Like, he’s egotistical and shit. Only wants things that’ll pleasure him. He’s willing to commit treason just to, like, get a girl in his pants.”

“Exactly, yeah.” He flips his page over and starts glancing over it. “And what about Zeus? How does Homer portray him?”

“Like a dick/vagina head.”

Phil chuckles. “More specific, please.”

Dan smiles and covers up his passages with his hand, trying to do it without relying on the text, which even then, is almost impossible for Phil to read. Homer is too poetic for his taste.

Well, it _is_ a poem, so…

…whatever.

“Okay, so…when Hera walked in after her glow-up, Zeus got, like, really horny and shit, and he waslike ‘yo, you’re really hot now, wanna fuck?’ and Hera was like ‘oh, shit, no, I’m gonna go see our parents, I mean that as in you’re also my brother, oh shit’, like almost just as a reminder that they’re also siblings, and then Zeus is like ‘no, bitch; you’re staying with me because I wanna fuck you’ or something like that, and then he lists off all his, like, extramarital affairs and all his kids that he didn’t have with her, and he kisses up her ass because he’s like ‘you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, you’re so much better than all my old girlfriends, what-the-fuck-ever’, and then they fuck. All he wanted from her was that. Like, he didn’t want her before, ‘cause he was out fucking every mortal female he saw, but then all of a sudden Hera shows up and is suddenly a lot hotter, he wants to fuck her. He’s also, like, an egotistical bastard.”

Phil snickers and shakes his head, looking down at his paper. “I mean, that’s basically it.”

“I told you I read it!” Dan exclaims, removing his hand from covering his paper.

“I didn’t doubt you!”

Dan scoffs. “Whatever.”

Phil shakes his head. “No, seriously,” he replies. “You knew everything that happened in this scene _and_ what Homer was trying to show metaphorically through it. You did a great job.”

Dan keeps his eyes focused on the papers in front of him. Phil can see a light tint of a blush on his cheeks. “Shut up.”

“You did; you know the material. You’re going to ace the essay portion of the essay…I mean, as long as you don’t say ‘Zeus was a dickhead’ and ‘Hera was a female dog’ on it, you’ll be good.”

“Do you not swear?” Dan asks, looking at Phil with his head turned to the side, appearing to be confused. It seems as though they’ve now stopped talking about Homer, then.

Phil shrugs his shoulders. “I mean, I have the ability _to_ swear, but I just don’t.”

And because his mum would kill him if she heard him curse.

Dan nods his head, as if taking in this information. “Hmm.”

“I mean, I might if, like, I’m playing a video game or something. Like, raging during _Mario Kart_ or something.”

“Online multiplayer?”

Phil snickers and nods his head. “Always.”

Dan smiles as he runs his thumb along a corner of his packet. “I know what you mean. I swear everyone I race against is, like, an elite player that literally spends their entire life learning secrets and shit. Unfair, really. Like, we get it: you literally have nothing else to do with your life than learn the secrets and cheats in _Mario Kart_.”

“Or they’re hackers.”

Dan laughs, rocking his head back, which causes Phil to smile as well. “Yes, yes, or that.”

Phil shrugs his shoulders. “It’s possible. I mean, you never know with all these people. Some of them could honestly be serial killers, some might be cannibals, some might be selling organs on the Black Market and we would never know, since all we see are their Miis.”

“Those were all very gruesome, dude; have some faith in humanity, for God’s sake,” Dan says, shaking his head at Phil’s description. “At least say, like, one of them could be an astronaut or something.”  

“Do you think one day we’ll be able to play _Mario Kart_ from space?”

Dan snickers and closes his eyes, looking as though he can’t believe what Phil has just told him. He slaps the floor multiple times for a reason that Phil doesn’t quite understand. “My God, what goes through your head all the time?”

“What?”

“You say the weirdest things!”

“It was a genuine question!”

“How am I supposed to know if we’re going to be able to play _Mario Kart_ in space?”

“It was an opinionated question! I’m not asking for facts!”

Dan laughs, shaking his head, clearly not annoyed but acting as though he is. He does this a lot with Phil, from what Phil has picked up on over these past few times interacting with him. “My God, I don’t know! I’m not a psychic!”

“My grandma was a psychic!”

Dan furrows his eyebrows, not believing him. “Was she?” he asks in an “are-you-kidding-me” voice.

“Yes!” Phil exclaims, nodding his head enthusiastically. “She used to predict tons of stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like-”

Right as Phil is about to start explaining and tell a story about his grandma’s tarot cards, Dan’s phone starts vibrating from his pocket. Dan rolls his eyes and reaches for it, pulling it out and looking at the screen to see who is calling him. He huffs, sits up straight, and accepts the call, putting his phone to his ear.

“Hello?” he asks. The voice on the other end of the phone instantly begins talking rapidly, to where Phil can’t even try to decipher what they’re talking about. He knows he shouldn’t be eavesdropping on the conversation in the first place, but how can he not when he’s literally sitting right there?

Dan nods his head a few times as he listens, and then he rubs his hand across his forehead.

“Right now?” he asks. He scoffs and looks at the clock. He and Phil hadn’t been studying for that long – only about twenty minutes, and they’d only just finished going through history class material. They still had all his other subjects to go through, including the large load of Dan’s late homework.

“I thought that wasn’t until tomorrow,” Dan sys, tapping his knuckles rhythmically on his knee.

Phil hears the person on the other end of the phone sat Dan’s name before talking rapidly, Dan looking quite annoyed afterwards.

Dan sighs and looks at the floor once the person stops speaking. “Yeah, alright. Okay. I’ll meet you out there. Okay. Bye.” He pulls the phone away from his ear, ends the call, and shrugs his shoulders as he tosses his phone on the floor. “Sorry. My mum is picking me up. Um…I forgot I had a…um…a dentist appointment today.” He clears his throat awkwardly as he starts packing away his items into his bag.

Phil nods his head. “That’s alright,” he replies. “We can meet up again on Friday.”

Dan gnaws on his bottom lip and scratches the back of his neck. “Actually…can we meet up again tomorrow? I’ve…I’ve got a maths quiz on Friday that I’d like to study for,” Dan requests, almost looking scared to ask, as he is almost flinching. “I don’t want to, like, get in the way of your personal life or anything.”

Phil shakes his head, almost tempted to say “I don’t have one”. “It’s fine. And yeah, I’m free tomorrow. We can meet here, same time?”

Dan nods his head as he stands up, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Cool.” He looks around and lets out a sigh. “Um…you leaving too, or…?”

“My parents aren’t expecting me to be home for a bit, so I think I’ll stay here for a bit longer.”

“Okay,” Dan says. He shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other. “Um…thanks.”

“No problem. And don’t worry about the history exam. You’ll pass it.”

“Let’s hope so.” He smiles at Phil and waves at him once before turning around, walking out of their cubby and into the main part of the library, heading out the doors to go meet his mum out in the parking lot.

Right as Phil is about to start writing some notes down for his anatomy exam, he feels his phone vibrate. He furrows his eyebrows and pulls it out of his pocket, expecting a text from Louise or from PJ, but instead, it’s from Dan.

 **Dan**  
send me your grandmas “psychic” predictions so i dont get bored out of my mind  
(15:24)

Phil smiles and laughs to himself as he starts typing away.


	6. Chapter Six

Dan and Phil have been meeting up for a total of three weeks now, with Dan luckily showing up to every single one on-time and ready to get his work completed and his information caught-up, while also saving some extra time to distract himself and Phil with conversation about nothing-in-particular. Sometimes Dan might have to leave early for doctors’ appointments, which he seems to have quite a lot of, but other than that, it’s all fine and dandy.

And, also, a friendship has quickly been formed, as one might guess.

They’ve been texting a lot outside of tutoring sessions, and never usually _about_ the tutoring sessions: more about other things, like music, movies, video games, and other interests. Unfortunately, they’re not in any classes together, and Dan has B Lunch while Phil has A, but even during those times, they’ll still be messaging each other.

Of course, Phil still pays attention to his other friends, as he loves them dearly, and they still talk outside of school sometimes, though not necessarily much else besides being in the same class. Phil just excited that he’s found a new friend to bond with.

After all, he and Dan have already found so many things in common in such a short span of time, but at the same time, they’re so different. It’s like this weird connection that they have together that Phil can’t necessarily explain. They just flow from one topic to the next in any conversation. They could talk for hours and hours, and there would rarely be a moment of silence.

It’s weird, since they’ve only just met a month ago, and Phil never usually connects with someone this easily, but it’s what happened, and he’s definitely not complaining.

It’s weird. But a good kind of weird.

“Haven’t you technically already gotten your ten hours?” PJ asks Phil with furrowed eyebrows as Phil sets down his phone after sending a quick text to Dan. They’re at the lunch table, peoples’ lunches and textbooks spewed out across the table.

Phil peels off the crust of his sandwich. It’s one of his mum’s superstitions that he caught onto when he was a child– something about if you eat it, you get curly hair. Of course, he doesn’t do it for that reason anymore, as he knows it’s definitely not true, but he still just finds himself doing it out of habit.

“I haven’t really thought about that,” Phil replies. He hasn’t been counting or keeping track of what they’ve been doing together either, even though he probably should be.

“How many times have you and him been meeting up a week? Like, three?”

“Sometimes four,” Phil answers, nodding his head. He counts in his head how many times it’s been. “So…eleven times? It’ll be twelve tomorrow night.” He shrugs his shoulders humbly, thinking that it’s not something that extravagant.

“So, aren’t you technically done with this whole part of it?” Louise asks. “You could talk to Simpson and get the essay assignment.”

“I haven’t gotten any signatures yet,” Phil replies, which he’s being honest about. He has to get his signatures from one of Dan’s parents, show those signatures to the Student Success Center, and then get _their_ signatures. It’s a whole big mess of signatures that comes with tutoring. Apparently they’re being very careful about making sure that Phil is legitimately helping Dan.

“So, get them, and then you can be done with it! It’s as simple as that, isn’t it?” Caspar adds, sticking his arms out in surprise. “I wanna be done with this stupid assignment as soon as possible! You’re lucky.”

“That’s because he’s actually gotten a service project going on,” PJ points out, turning his attention back to Phil after.

Phil shrugs his shoulders again. “Dan is still catching up on a lot of homework he’s missed, so I would feel bad about just… _leaving_ him be once I got all my service hours.”

“How much homework has the damn kid missed?” Caspar asks, furrowing his eyebrows.

“A lot. He got sick a lot at the beginning of the school year and wasn’t here for, like, the first two weeks or so. And then sporadically after that. He’s just now getting better from it.”

PJ shakes his head. “That guy must have the worst immune system on the face of the _planet_.”

“He just gets sick a lot,” Phil says.  

“That just adds to my point,” PJ replies, sitting back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest.

Louise pats Phi’s shoulder. “No, but seriously, Phil; you’ve basically completed the first part of the assignment. Why don’t you just get the signatures? Then you won’t have to keep tutoring.”

“He still needs help, though,” Phil replies. All of them stare blankly at him. “Seriously! And I don’t mind helping him!”

“Phil, honey, you were complaining when you were starting that you didn’t want to tutor.”

“Because I didn’t think I would like it.”

“Wait, you actually _like_ tutoring?” Joe asks, sounding surprised.

Phil shrugs. “It’s not that bad,” he replies. “I mean…we’re just, like, studying together. And we can do homework at the same time, or…I don’t know…we just sometimes just sit and talk. We get along really well.”

“But you’re still stuck after school for an extra hour,” Caspar points out.

Phil restrains himself from rolling his eyes. “It’s not that bad. I’m being honest. I don’t mind at all.”

Louise sighs and taps on the table. “Well, whether you enjoy tutoring or not, I think you need a little break from it,” she explains. Phil keeps himself from interrupting her and allows her to speak. “You’ve basically gotten the assignment done, so I think you need to have a little night with your friends.”

“We’ve missed having you hang out with us,” PJ adds. “Ever since…well…”

“I know what you mean,” Phil says, his voice showing his annoyance. His friends are still being so sensitive about that whole Charlie situation.

When it first happened, they did try to cheer him up all the time, but as time passed on and Phil, at the time of course because he’s better now, wasn’t getting better, they just gave him sympathetic looks. And now, they don’t even mention it or bring it up, treating Charlie like he’s Voldemort and he’s “He Who Shall Not Be Named”, as if it’s going to upset Phil when he is brought up.

But it’s fine, it happened, and Phil isn’t bothered by it anymore.

“…yeah. Like, we miss having you around when we hang out. And not that it’s gotten worse since you started tutoring or anything-”

 _Which means you think it’s gotten worse since I started tutoring,_ Phil thinks to himself, sitting back in his seat.

“-but…yeah, we just miss you.”

“So why don’t you take a break from studying tomorrow night and come be with us?” Louise suggests, placing her hand back on Phil’s shoulder. “It’s a Friday night; you shouldn’t be spending it indoors by yourself or tutoring. Come hang out with us!”

Phil shakes his head. “You guys are sounding like I’m dying or something.”

“We just want you to…I don’t know…”

“Go back to my ‘old self’?” Phil questions, using air-quotes, as he doesn’t really know what they’re talking about. Yeah, he’s been less social lately, but that doesn’t mean he’s still not the same Phil that they’ve known since nursery.

Louise slumps her shoulders. “Phil, we don’t mean it like that. You’ve just been…you’ve been a little down in the dumps recently, and we’re worried about you.” She squeezes his shoulder tightly. “So…take a break? For us?”

Phil looks around at the table, seeing the expectant eyes of his friends. He knows they’re worried about him, and he appreciates that a lot, but…at the same time, it’s almost as if they don’t realize that Dan is his friend, and Phil really wants to help him out. He’s struggling, and he needs the assistance, and Phil wants to be there for him, and he doesn’t mind helping. He actually genuinely likes their tutoring sessions.

It’s not like he’s been completely abandoning his friends. He really hasn’t, since they still talk often, both in and out of the classroom. He just has more priorities now. It’s not that big of a deal, in Phil’s opinion.

But for them…maybe he can put off a night of tutoring. And Dan deserves a break himself, anyway. He’s been working quite hard over these past few weeks to get his work caught up. Maybe a night off is in order for them.

And he has a hard time saying “no”.

“Fine,” he agrees.

Louise squeals and claps her hands rapidly. PJ, Caspar, and Joe all nod their heads in agreement, giving Phil big, friendly smiles. Phil smiles back, and the conversation after is quickly switched to talking about the French quiz that is coming up later in the week.

\---------------------------------

“I feel really bad,” Phil says into his phone that evening as he’s seated at his desk, his laptop open for him to write an essay for one of his classes, though he’s clearly occupied by talking to Dan on the phone instead.

This is only the second time that he and Dan have spoken on the phone. The first time had been earlier that week when Dan was struggling to remember something for an assignment, but then they ended up talking about music, movies, and video games for around two hours before Phil’s mum had to come up to his room and tell him to tone it down because he was laughing so much.

“No, no, no, it’s fine,” Dan tells him, and Phil almost thinks he’s just saying that so he doesn’t feel bad about cancelling tutoring.

“I know that you probably had things you wanted to go over, but my friends-“

“Phil, seriously, it’s fine.”

“-invited me to hang out, and I can’t really say ‘no’ to them, even when I tried to explain-“

“Phil, oh my God, shut up; you’re fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“-that you probably need some help with-“

“ _Phil, seriously, you can stop_ ,” Dan exclaims loudly to him, finally getting Phil to stop.  Dan laughs, and Phil can imagine him shaking his head with his dimples appearing on his cheeks. “Seriously, oh my fucking God, you’re fine.”

Phil furrows his eyebrows. “I am?”

Dan snickers and mutters “my goodness” under his breath. “Yes, you’re fine.” He pauses for a few seconds before coughing away from the speaker on the phone.

“Are you okay?” Phil asks after Dan has finished coughing.

“Fine,” Dan says, his voice slightly weaker than it had been before. He clears his throat before he speaks up again. “But, yeah, it’s totally fine that we don’t meet up tomorrow.”

“Are you getting sick again?” Phil asks, even though that isn’t the topic of interest.

“No, um…yeah, I just kinda…dusted my room, you know? Dust is just, like, flying everywhere in here. Not a big deal. But, yeah, don’t worry about not tutoring tomorrow. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Phil nods his head, but he’s still completely unsure about whether or not Dan is just making this up or if he’s being honest with him. He thinks that maybe Dan is just doing this to make him feel better about the whole situation, but at the same time Dan doesn’t seem like the kind of person to do that. Dan is pretty honest with him (or so it seems, and now Phil is questioning everything).

“Are you sure?”

“Phil, for God’s sake, yes, it’s fine,” Dan replies. “We can meet up on Monday and reconvene. Plus, like, I can’t be relying on you for everything academic-wise, right?”

“Well, I’m here to help you.”

“And I’m here to tell you that you can hang out with your friends and we can still meet on Monday.”

Phil pauses for a few moments, looking at his computer screen. He taps his fingers on the edge of his desk and lets out a long sigh. “But if you need help over the weekend, I’ll be available then.”

“Yeah, of course,” Dan says, snickering. “You sound so worried, like something is going to happen to me if you don’t tutor me tomorrow.” He clears his throat after that.

“I just feel bad.”

“Phil, for the last time: go hang out with your friends. It’s all good. I don’t mind in the slightest.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, Phil. It’s fine. Full-stop. Now, if you would please explain to me why I can’t stop watching videos of this guy playing ‘All Star’ on one-dollar musical instruments…”

\-----------------------------------------

And that Friday night, when Phil was sat in Louise’s basement, a rerun of _Friends_ playing on the tele, and a conversation among Louise, PJ, Caspar, and Joe flowing back and forth about Louise’s new crush, Liam, and PJ’s crush, Sophie, Phil senses an ill feeling settling in his stomach.

He knows why, but he swears to God he’s fine. He swears.

He sighs and pulls out his phone from his pocket and sees a lone text sitting from Dan, which he had sent two hours ago, which tells him to have fun and that he’s promising he’ll study tonight.

Phil feels his hand hover over his power button, as if just asking for him to open the phone and message Dan back.

But he hears his friends’ laughter, and he knows they’re wanting him to get involved, even though he doesn’t necessarily like the topic.

But he told them he would be more involved, even though he really doesn’t want to.

So, he turns his phone back off and ignores it, trying to find a space in the conversation to jump in.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I would do daily chapters, but tomorrow is my posting day for the Phandom Big Bang, so I'll be posting that on my Tumblr (phananddragonsfics) instead of a chapter tomorrow! So, if you want some reading from me (for whatever reason lol), you can head over to my Tumblr tomorrow and my PBB fic will be up :D 
> 
> But I hope you enjoy the chapter today!

“You haven’t been staying after school lately, Phil,” Kathryn tells her son. They are in the kitchen together after dinner, and it’s Phil’s night to wash the dishes. He’s at the sink, slowly cleaning the plates while his mother prepares herself and Nigel mugs of tea to drink.

It’s been a little less than a week since Dan and Phil last met up for tutoring, meaning they never met up again after Phil postponed their next study session so he could hang out with his friends.

Phil didn’t have an explanation for it; he wasn’t sure if Dan was at school, but he never showed up for studying and he never responded to any of Phil’s texts or calls regarding the situation. Literally, Phil would text or call him constantly, asking him where he was, and Dan had been getting quite good at replying nearly right away after Phil would contact him, but now, all of a sudden, he’s disappeared off the face of the planet.

Literally: none of his texts or calls have been returned, or even _read_. They’re just left on “delivered”. He hasn’t even _looked_ at them. Phil doesn’t know if his phone has just been turned off, if he got sick again, or, worst case scenario but the one that just can’t seem to leave his mind: is Dan actually mad at him for ditching tutoring to go be with his friends?

Phil doesn’t know. It’d been going so well, so, so, so, so, _so_ well – or so he imagined – since he and Dan were quickly becoming friends, and because Dan was catching up on all his homework that he missed and all the information that he didn’t fully understand was becoming clear.

But now, without even a smidgen of warning, Dan hasn’t shown up in a week.

Was he legit mad that he skipped out on Friday? Because even though Dan told him multiple times that it’s all fine and that it was okay that they skipped this one day, but he still could’ve been saying that to make Phil feel better about it. Phil just always feels incredibly bad if he cancels something that he originally planned to do something else. He always feels like he’s letting the person down, even though he knows it’s not a big deal.

And yes, in this case, Phil is highly aware that this isn’t a big deal and that these kinds of things happen all the time, but for some reason, maybe because this situation involves neglecting to help someone or just because it involves Dan, he feels incredibly terrible for not being there for him on Friday, and perhaps this is just punishment for that.

He’s sure it’s not that serious, but the thought still lingers, and he wouldn’t doubt it in all honesty.

“Um, yeah, uh…Dan hasn’t been at school lately,” Phil explains as he scrubs away at one of the plates in the sink. “So, um…haven’t been able to tutor, I guess.”

“And this is for that one assignment, right?”

Phil nods his head, but then he pauses and rethinks his answer. “Well…I mean, not exactly,” he says. “Um…it’s, like…I don’t know…he’s my friend, I guess, so it’s more like I’m helping him because he needs the help, not because I need to do it for an assignment. But he hasn’t been coming to school, and he won’t respond to any of my texts or calls, so I don’t know what’s up with him or anything.”

“Has he been at school at all?” Kathryn asks, leaning against the counter as she lets the teabags steep in her mug.

“That’s the thing: I don’t have any idea,” Phil replies, setting the dish on the drying rack. He turns off the tap and dries off his hands with a clean towel, setting it down on the counter afterwards. “I don’t have any of my classes with him, so I don’t know.” He shrugs. “We don’t see each other outside of tutoring.”

“Hmm,” Kathryn hums, clearly thinking to herself.

Phil nods his head, placing his hands into his pockets.

“Have you tried talking to the people in charge of tutoring?”

“I don’t know what they could do about it,” Phil replies. “They’re just the ones who were asking for someone to help him out. I don’t think they can really do anything more with it. It’s not like they can tell me if Dan isn’t going to school or anything.”

“But they can at least guide you in the right direction, can’t they?”

Phil shrugs his shoulders. “I’ll check in with them tomorrow, I guess,” he says, more-so to keep his mum happy than for himself.

“It’s just to make sure that there’s nothing they can do about it,” Kathryn replies. “But it’s very kind of you that you’re worried about Dan. You must really enjoy tutoring him.”

Phil gives his mum a small smile.

Kathryn lets out a sigh. “I have to admit: your father and I were quite worried for you after you and Charlie-“

Phil groans and looks down at the tiled floors. “Mum, not you, too…”

Kathryn puts her hands up in defense. “I’m just a concerned mother stating her honest thoughts.”

Phil sighs and looks off to the side.

“I’m just saying that right after you and Charlie broke up, we were worried because you spent nearly the entire summer holiday holed up in your room. But now, you’ve found something to do that keeps you busy, you’ve seemed…in a better mood lately, if that makes sense.”

Phil nods his head knowingly. He understands where his mum is coming from with this. Of course he does; she’s just looking out for him and making sure that he’s okay. Yeah, Phil had a bit of a rough time over the summer, which is certainly concerning. But now that he’s occupying himself with something and also simultaneously managing to make a new friend, of course that looks better to Kathryn. Like he’s finally healing, as if Phil didn’t already do that on his own.

Because Phil swears he’s fine. He’s over Charlie; that was done and over with, Phil knew even when they were together that they weren’t going to last, but of course, any breakup is hard, but it’s been months since it happened. Phil is fine. He’s fine.

He’s been fine, and he will be fine.

…

What was he talking about again?

Oh, right: Dan.

Back to reality.

“Well, I mean, I have been enjoying it,” Phil replies nonchalantly and honestly.

“And that’s great,” Kathryn says kindly, walking over to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Phil.”

She presses a loving kiss to the side of his head. “Thank you,” Phil says.

She pats his shoulders and smiles. “You’re welcome, dear.”

\--------------------------------------

That next morning, before Phil heads out on his walk to school, he dials Dan’s phone number as he sits on the edge of his bed, tapping his foot anxiously.

It rings and it rings and it rings, and by the time it’s passed the fourth ring, Phil knows Dan isn’t going to pick up. This is how it’s been going all week.

He hopes it’s nothing he’s done, and he hopes Dan isn’t mad at him for leaving him alone Friday night instead of studying with him. He probably should’ve made time to be with him and study, considering just how much help Dan has been needing, but of course Phil didn’t stop by and help because his friends were being influences on him and were basically peer pressuring him into not doing it, and they didn’t listen to h-

_Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. Please leave your message after the tone._

Phil sighs and turns of his phone, not bothering to leave a message.

Of course this wouldn’t work out for him again.

\---------------------------------------

Phil doesn’t know why, but later in the day when he goes to the Student Success Center during his lunch period, he almost hopes that he passes by Dan or sees Dan inside the center. But why would Phil just get that lucky? Why would things work out for him that easily?

Phil steps inside the office, which is basically abandoned. A lot of people just kind of forget that it exists.

Phil approaches the desk where the lady he had spoken to when he started tutoring Dan is seated. She looks up at him as he approaches her. He sets his fingers down on the top of the desk and looks down at her.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

Phil clears his throat. He hadn’t thought about what he was going to say. Normally he does, but he had just left to do this on a whim, without even thinking about it before hand. He was just like “oh, I have a free period, so I’m going to go see if I can solve this Dan mystery”.

He keeps texting and calling every free chance he gets, but Dan has not responded nor read any of his messages at all. It’s literally like he has just disappeared off the face of the planet. Of course Phil is getting increasingly worried the more he doesn’t hear about Dan.

“Um…so, I’m Dan Howell’s tutor,” he says awkwardly, not knowing what else to say.

“Yes?”

“Um…well, he hasn’t been showing up to any of the sessions for the past week, and I was just wondering what I should do about it.”

The woman sighs. “Have you tried contacting him?” she asks.

Phil nods his head. “I’ve been trying to all week, but he won’t respond to anything.”

“Okay,” the lady says, though it sounds more like a question, like “what am I supposed to do about it”.

“What should I do?”

The lady sighs for the umpteenth time and shrugs her shoulders as she shakes her head. “It is your decision. You’re the tutor.”

“But he won’t respond to any of my messages or anything.” He looks around and slumps his shoulders, feeling a sense of failure in his chest. “Is he absent or anything?”

“He is absent today. His homework is right over on the next desk, if you would like to pick it up.”

Phil rolls his eyes. What would he do with all of Dan’s homework if he doesn’t even know what’s wrong with him, or, hell, where he lives in order to give it to him? And it’s not like he can ask where Dan lives.

Phil sighs and pretends like he didn’t hear the last statement. “Is he sick?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to share that information.”

Phil restrains himself from rolling his eyes, despite how deeply he wants to. “But I need to-“

“I understand that it’s important, but I’m not allowed to share why students are absent.”  

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, but I can’t share anything. Is there anything else you need?”

Phil frowns and looks down at the floor, feeling like he has just failed at everything. He shakes his head and moves away from the counter, walking out of the office with his head held low.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys haven't checked it out already, and if you would like to, please check out my PBB fic - it's posted on here, and it's called "Yesterday (All My Troubles Seemed So Far Away)", and I worked really hard on it, and it would mean the world to me if you would check it out if you haven't already!
> 
> Yes, I took the time to give you this shameless self-promotion. I'm allowed to do that, right? lol
> 
> anyway now to the fic and i'm sure all of you are going to murder me by the end of this chapter lol

“How have you and Dan been coming along? Like, on studying, I mean,” PJ asks Phil as they’re walking through the hallways together on a Friday, getting ready to head to the lunchroom. Louise will be joining them soon, but she had to stop and ask Zoe a question about some class or whatever.

Phil shrugs his shoulders and sticks his hands in the pockets of his school pants. “We haven’t met all week,” he responds. He had just texted Dan at the end of the last period and, of course, Dan had left it on “delivered”. He hadn’t read any texts Phil had been sending throughout the week.

PJ furrows his eyebrows. “Why not?” he asks. “Weren’t you just telling us that you guys were spending nearly every day after school together?”

Phil sighs and shrugs again, not sure what else to do. “He hasn’t been talking to me, and he’s not at school. Hasn’t been all week.”

“Why not?” PJ asks. “Is he sick again?”

“I’m not sure,” Phil replies, shaking his head. “I thought he would tell me if he was, but he hasn’t told me anything.”

PJ looks ahead, pursing his lips. “Hmm…that seems quite odd, doesn’t it?”

“I guess,” Phil replies. “But the Student Success Center hasn’t been able to tell me anything. They’re not allowed to give that kind of information away, I guess. I guess it is kind of private in a way.”

“Yeah, but you’re supposed to be tutoring him.”

Phil shrugs. “The most the center does is leave me his homework, but I can’t do anything with it.”

PJ frowns, just as Phil suspected he would do. “I’m sorry, man,” he says, patting his shoulder in a friendly manner, but mostly just because he didn’t know what else to do. “Wish I could help you out.”

Phil just shakes his head and doesn’t talk about it again, since he doesn’t know what more there is to talk about on the manner.

\------------------------------------------------------

That Saturday, Phil, his parents, and his brother all found themselves at the hospital.

It wasn’t anything too serious; just Phil’s grandmother fell in her home the night before and was taken to the hospital. She was fine; she just got a little banged up and needed medical assistance. She probably would be released tomorrow, but Phil’s parents decided that they would go visit her in the hospital anyway, just so she would have company for a bit.

This would actually be the first thing Phil has done outside of school for the entire week, as tutoring has basically been put on hold and also Phil just hasn’t felt “up” to hanging out with his friends aside from in class or at lunch (if those even really count as “hanging out” – Phil honestly doesn’t think they do, but he keeps trying to make himself feel better by telling himself that).

But, hey, he’s getting out of the house to go see his grandmother, which, despite said meeting taking place in a cramped hospital room, isn’t a bad way to spend his Saturday morning. And it’s a nice distraction from the internet, which he definitely would’ve remained on if his mother hadn’t come into his room telling him they were visiting his grandmother.

And, of course, he doesn’t feel guilty for literally spending all his time alone in his room to the point where his parents are concerned. Because now that his mum brought that up to him, he can’t stop thinking about how worried it must make them.

But Phil’s fine. Really. He is. Don’t think that he’s not, because he is. Really: he is _fine_. Period. End of story. Full-stop.

They find his grandmother laid in her hospital bed, looking quite tired. She has an IV in her wrist, and the ECG is beside her bed, showing her steady heart rate. She had a few bruises on her arms from what Phil could see, but other than that, she looked normal.

She’s fine, she tells them. It was just a little scare. Grandpa was down in the cafeteria grabbing coffee and would be up in a while. He’d been the one to call the ambulance, even when she insisted she didn’t need assistance. Then he’d stayed with her all night, even though she told him to stay home.

Phil smiles. He has adorable grandparents. His parents are a lot like them, too. He sees the connection between them.

He remembers his parents used to sometimes drop Martyn and Phil off at their grandparents’ house, which is a little out of the city and in more of the farming area, and they’d be left there for a whole week during the summer holiday so Kathryn and Nigel had a little break to themselves.

And Phil and Martyn never minded at all; they loved going to their grandparents’ house. They had a huge backyard with a little garden out by the shed, they had a golden retriever called Bundle whom Phil and Martyn loved, and it was just time where Phil and Martyn got to spend time with their grandparents, which was loads of fun because of how much they got spoiled.

They would do loads of things together – they’d go to the cinema, his grandparents would watch them as they did indoor-ice skating at a local hockey rink, they’d have bonfires in the backyard, they’d drive out into the middle of nowhere, go to neighborhood barbecues, everything.

Those were some fun times from Phil’s youth that he doesn’t ever think he will ever forget. He enjoyed it, being able to do all these things with his grandparents during the summers. It was a lot of fun.

Phil does remember one specific moment from his time one summer when he was around eight years old when he was gardening with his grandmother.

_Phil was tasked one afternoon to go out and water the plants in the garden while Martyn was helping their grandpa make lunch for the family._

_Phil was working on the flowers, the bright colored flowers that his grandmother had planted in the spring. They were beautiful, in Phil’s opinion – the delicate petals were bold and bright. Phil’s grandmother sometimes sells the flowers once they’re done growing, as she knows they can certainly make someone’s day._

_However, as Phil went down the line of flowers, he frowned upon seeing one simple orange carnation with wilted petals and a stem beginning to turn brown._

_He called his grandmother out and asked her to look at it._

_“It’s dying,” Phil tells her as he points to the flower._

_His grandmother, to Phil’s surprise, laughed and shook her head, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Oh, Philip; just because the petals are wilting and the stem is turning brown doesn’t mean the flower is dying.”_

_Phil furrowed his eyebrows. That’s what he had always been taught. “What do you mean?”_

_“It just needs a little extra care and support,” his grandmother explained, walking nearer to the flower, touching it with a tender hand. “It simply needs help. If we water it more, allow it to get more sun, then it will be all fine again.”_

_“And it will be as pretty as the other flowers?”_

_His grandmother laughed again. “Oh, Philip, I think it still is just as beautiful as the other flowers.”_

_And the next time he saw his grandmother, when they were celebrating his grandfather’s birthday only a month later, his grandmother presented him with the same carnation, this time, much brighter and healthier than it had been before._

Phil isn’t sure why, but that event always just stuck with him for some reason. It’s nothing out-of-the-ordinary; his grandmother always spoke like that, with little life-lessons and what-have-you. She’s probably the reason why his mother always has things to say like that.

She quickly switched the topic to Phil and Martyn, asking how they were doing and how school was going. Martyn is at Manchester Uni, but he still lives at home just because of the convenience, and because he and Cornelia are working on getting their own place to live. The two have honestly been together for longer than Phil can even remember. Like, he can’t remember a time when the two weren’t dating; that’s how long they’ve been together.

And, of course, Phil had the basic answer of “oh, school is going just fine; just some homework and exams to keep up with”. It’s the same-old answer every single time, but Phil doesn’t know how else to answer the question.

But, apparently Phil neglected to mention one important thing to his grandmother.

“And how is Charlie doing?” she asks him with a warm smile on her face.

Phil’s face turned even paler than it normally is, and he felt his stomach drop to the floor. His mouth went dry as he tried to say in a steady voice, “oh, um…we-we aren’t together, um…anymore.”

The room instantly got ten-times more awkward the second Phil finished that sentence. Martyn awkwardly cleared his throat and looked the other way.

“Oh, you aren’t?” his grandmother asks, raising her eyebrows.

Phil nods. “We, uh…we broke up over the summer,” he replies. “I, uh…I think I forgot to tell you. It was…yeah, it was back in June, I want to say.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Philip; I shouldn’t have asked-“

“No, no, no; it’s fine, it’s all good. I mean…well, we don’t really talk anymore, but…yeah, it’s all good. It was mutual. Don’t worry about it. It’s not that big of a deal; we’re fine, but we just went our separate ways, which I think was for our own good. Don’t worry about asking; it was my fault for not…um…bringing it up, I guess.” He bites his bottom lip awkwardly and then glances out the door. “Um…I’m going to go get a drink of water, I think. I’ll be back.”

Without even waiting to hear a response, he slips out of the room and heads down the hallway to some other random part of the hospital, seeking out a vending machine so he could get himself a bottle of water. Maybe dump all of it on his head as punishment for how _freaking stupid he just made himself sound_.

He’s such an idiot. He definitely didn’t make himself sound fine with it. He’s sure his grandmother is just thinking to herself how awkward her grandson is, and how there is a definite chance that Phil isn’t over Charlie (which he is, but he just didn’t make himself sound like it). Phil is honestly just the greatest person at making himself seem like a freaking idiot who isn’t over the break-up of his ex-boyfriend that happened months ago. Sometimes he just doesn’t have a filter and manages to say the weirdest things that definitely don’t help his case.

Whatever; what’s been said has been said and he can’t really take that back now.

He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. It’s all good. It’s just his grandmother. It’s fine.

He finds a vending machine along a hallway with more rooms for patients. He slips in some money from his pocket and types in the code for a water bottle, and he waits for the bottle to fall down. It’s the slowest machine on the face of the planet, however, so Phil puts his hands in his pockets, anxiously rocks back and forth on his heels and looks around.

He hears footsteps coming from another hallway. Phil awkwardly looks down at the tiled floor to make it look like he’s not paying attention. He stares at his feet, making a mental note to himself that he should really get some new shoes. His are falling apart at the _seams_.

He glances up, thinking the person was going the opposite way, but instead, his eyes fall upon someone walking right past Phil wearing a hospital gown.

Someone who looks so familiar.

So, so, so, _so_ familiar.

The water bottle drops from the machine.

“Dan?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> muahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa


	9. Chapter Nine

Phil blinks his eyes a few times, not fully able to believe who he is seeing. Why does he see Dan dressed in a hospital gown, a hospital bracelet around his wrist, and dark bags under his eyes?

Surely Phil must be missing tutoring so much that he is just all of a sudden imagining Dan standing in front of him in a hospital gown.

But why would he be imagining Dan in a hospital gown?

Oh, _God_ Phil must be going crazy.

Dan looks just as confused as Phil; almost like he also can’t believe that Phil is here. But Phil isn’t a patient at the hospital.

So, this certainly looks suspicious.

“What are you doing here?” Dan asks, walking over to Phil. His voice is slightly hushed, as if he was trying to keep others from hearing them, but they are currently the only people in this hallway. He also definitely sounds angry. Like a quiet angry, but he’s definitely angry.

He’s scaring Phil, if Phil is being honest.

Which he definitely is.

He clears his throat awkwardly. “My grandma is here,” he answers. “She fell last night, so we came to visit her.”

Dan’s face softens, which makes Phil feel a lot better about the whole situation. “Oh, I’m…I’m really sorry about that.”

Phil shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly. “It’s all good; don’t worry about it. She’s really resilient, so she’ll get discharged soon, I’m sure.” He looks over to the side as the room falls in silence for a few brief moments, Phil not exactly knowing what to say. But, he can’t exactly ignore the elephant in the room, as much as he knows Dan would appreciate it, but it’s not like Phil can just pretend that Dan isn’t wearing a hospital gown.

So, anxiously, Phil turns back to Dan and looks him up and down. “But, um…what are _you_ doing here? Are _you_ okay?”

Dan huffs and nods his head. “Yes, I’m fine,” he replies, sounding a bit harsher than his normal tone once again, which confuses Phil, considering he just sounded so sympathetic. He lets out a long sigh and runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I just…”

Phil shakes his head. “You’re fine, Dan. Don’t worry,” he says with a kind smile. He’s probably just on edge because of the surprise of finding someone he knows in the same hospital with him. He probably wasn’t expecting this to happen; Phil certainly wasn’t.

“Did you get really sick again?” Phil asks. Maybe Dan’s colds are something far more serious than Phil ever made them out to be. Or maybe this one in particular was extremely bad, so he had to go to the hospital.

Or perhaps Phil should just stop assuming and let Dan explain for himself.

Dan sighs and glances away again, looking back down at the floor, as if it was the most interesting thing in the entire world. Phil stares at him, waiting for any sort of movement or signal or something to let him know that he will speak to him.

Because Phil is so worried for Dan. He can’t explain it – he just has this worrying feeling in his chest that won’t go away as he continues to look over Dan. He just looks so tired, but not only physically but mentally, as if there is something weighing on him. Weighing on his shoulders.

Phil can’t explain how he knows that. He honestly can’t. He just does.

And, also, of course, he’s worried about Dan’s health. He’s been getting sick a lot, and Phil would be lying if he said he wasn’t concerned for how often Dan was getting sick. It certainly doesn’t seem right, just how many days out of the year Dan has already missed because of his sickness, like someone shouldn’t be getting sick _that much_. So, obviously the question weighing on Phil’s mind is _why do you get sick so much_?

“Um…y-yeah,” Dan answers after around fifteen seconds of silence has passed. “Um…yeah, I just…got real sick.” He clears his throat, as his voice had gotten rough while saying that sentence. He looks up at Phil through his eyelashes, as if waiting for some kind of response from him. The second he sets eyes on Phil, he looks back down. “I, uh…I have something to tell you.”

“Um…” he groans quickly as he glances over at the hallway, as if he doesn’t want to share this information, “I, uh…haven’t necessarily been…been telling you the whole truth.” He lets out an even longer sigh than before, as if a weight had just been lifted off his shoulders. He then begins scratching anxiously at his wrist as he awaits a response from Phil.

Phil furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean?” he asks.

Dan continues to avoid his gaze, but Phil has his eyes locked on Dan, not wanting to turn away from him. He just continues to stare at him, keeping note of his every move.

“Um…well…I…I do get sick a lot,” Dan says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “but…not from, like, just a weak immune system…well, I mean, it is, but…but it’s…just…there’s more to it…um…there’s…there’s something I haven’t been telling you about, and…and it’s the reason why I get sick so much or why I don’t text or call back sometimes, or just…or just why I don’t…why I don’t show up to school and shit…” he groans and shakes his head, and then to Phil’s surprise, he blurts out, without any warning: “I have leukemia.”

The room literally falls completely silent. Literally: no sounds are made the second that sentence escapes Dan’s lips. It echoes throughout the empty corridor, and through Phil’s mind.

_I have leukemia…I have leukemia…I have leukemia…_

Phil stares at Dan, not knowing what to say. He blinks a few times, as if just trying to be able to do something. Something to bring back function to his brain.

Leukemia. Leukemia.

Leukemia. Cancer.

Cancer.

Dan has cancer.

The puzzle pieces start fitting together.

Phil not seeing Dan at school sometimes: probably because of treatment or chemo.

Dan being late to tutoring that one time: probably has to take medication.

Dan being so behind on homework from missing weeks at a time of school: probably because of treatment or chemo.

Dan getting sick all the time: his immune system is weak because of leukemia.

Dan being so bad at responding to texts and calls sometimes: he’s probably at the hospital or is too sick and can’t focus on his phone.

Everything just begins to add up all together. It all makes so much more sense to him now.

“Leukemia?” Phil repeats, just to fully make sure that he heard Dan correctly. Because he could easily just be making this all up inside of his head. He has the tendency to do that sometimes.

Dan nods his head, but he still refuses to look up at Phil. “I, uh…y-yeah,” he replies. He clears his throat and snakes a hand up into his hair. Now that Phil has had this news presented to him, he realizes how thin Dan’s hair looks – he’s not bald, a common side-effect of chemotherapy that literally everyone knows about, but Phil can see just how thin Dan’s hair is getting, and also, when Dan pulls back his hand from his hair, little strands of the curls fall out as well, but far more than it would with “normal” hair.  

“Um…I was diagnosed over the summer…in June,” Dan explains, biting his lip every now and again as he pauses to try and think of what to say. “I had been…I’d been feeling pretty sick for a while, and nothing really seemed to, like, get better, and so we went to the doctor, and…he was really worried, so we did a whole load of scans and shit, and…yeah, they found out I had AML.”

He looks up at Phil expectantly.

Phil furrows his eyebrows.

“It’s just a form of leukemia. I’m not even entirely sure if _I_ understand it that much, so I’m not the person who should be explaining it,” Dan explains. He shakes his head and clears his throat for the umpteenth time. “Um….so, yeah, we packed our bags and moved to Manchester because you guys have good cancer treatment and stuff. Um…yeah, this week they put me on new medication, and it really just kinda fucked with me and whatever, so I couldn’t come to school. The same thing happened when we were just starting school.” He shrugs his shoulders. “It happens.”

He sniffs, but he’s not crying. “Um…so I’ve been here for the past week or so, just trying to get better and shit. Um…I’m just walking around before I have chemo in, like, an hour or something because I know I’m going to be feeling like crap afterwards. This is only my first freaking cycle, but it fucking sucks.” He shrugs his shoulders again. There’s not much he can do about his treatment: he just has to live with it.

Phil is in shock. All this stuff Dan has been going through, stuff Dan hasn’t even told him about, sounds completely and utterly terrible.

And here Phil was thinking that Dan was only mad at him because he hung out with his friends. For Christ’s sake: Dan has a lot more things to worry about than not having tutoring one night. He has to deal with all of this crap, too.

The world is definitely a crappy place sometimes.

“I’m…I’m so sorry,” Phil says, not knowing what else to say. He bites his bottom lip and looks down at the floor in a similar fashion to Dan. “How come…how come you never told me?”

Dan shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. “I just…I don’t really want people to know.”

“Does the school know?”

“Of course,” Dan replies. “That’s why they’re being so nice about my school issue and giving me, like, three weeks to finish everything even if it’s due, like, the next fucking day. I just told them not to share any information with anyone because I don’t want people to know. They’re going to fucking pity me, like I’m a lost cause or something, when I’m not.

“It’s like, I’m feeling bad enough about myself, and I don’t need other people acting the same way towards me. It doesn’t help with anything. It doesn’t make me feel better, and it always just makes them feel better about themselves.”

He shakes his head and finally looks up at Phil, a determined look in his brown eyes that Phil could not miss for the life of him. “You better fucking swear that you won’t tell anyone.”

Phil places his hand over his chest immediately after he says that. “I promise on my life,” he says without even thinking about it. “I’m your friend, Dan. I wouldn’t do something like that to hurt you.”

Dan doesn’t say anything; he just nods his head and goes back to looking at the floor. Things have just suddenly gotten awkward when things before Dan’s disappearance had been going so well. And now…

“I’m serious, Dan,” Phil reiterates. “I’m _not_ going to do something like that. I promise.”

He holds out his pinkie for extra emphasis.

Dan eyes it for a few moments, as if contemplating doing it.

But instead of twisting his pinkie with his, Dan gives a small smile as he looks back up at Phil.

“Dude, I have the weakest fucking immune system in the world. If you don’t drown your hand with hand sanitizer, I can’t do that.”

 _There’s the Dan I know_ , Phil thinks to himself as he laughs out loud, which causes Dan’s smile to brighten up even more.

“Why don’t we do an air pinkie-lock just to be on the safe side?”

“You sound like my mother, for Christ’s sake. There’s hand sanitizer right behind you, for God’s sake. I’m not doing air pinkie-locks.” He gestures behind Dan, where a bottle of hand sanitizer is hung on the wall. “Just fucking wash your hands.”

Phil snickers as he walks over to it. “So demanding,” he says jokingly, at a volume just loud enough Dan to hear.

“I’m going to fucking slug you.”

Phil smiles as he rubs some hand sanitizer on to his hands. He turns back around to Dan, and the two of them finally lock pinkies.

“We’re such idiots,” Dan mutters to himself, rubbing his hand on the hospital gown.

“Is that necessarily a bad thing?”

Dan snickers. “I mean-“

“Daniel?” a voice calls from the hallway.

Dan and Phil both turn around to see a middle-aged woman standing there, her arms wrapped around her middle. She looks quite similar to Dan, so Phil automatically assumes this is Dan’s mother.

Dan’s shoulders slump. “Yeah?”

“You need to come back to the room. The doctor is going to want to start soon,” she tells him sternly, definitely making sure to choose her words carefully so Phil doesn’t really know what is happening.

“Yes, but doc said that I could walk around-“

“Daniel, please come back to the room.”

Dan rolls his eyes and turns back to Phil briefly. “I’ll be calling you as soon as I can.”

“Ignore all the missed calls and texts from me.”

Dan snickers and shakes his head as he walks away from him, his mother placing a hand on his back as she instantly begins leading him away from the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s a lot revealed all in one chapter lol but it’s here, dan overshared for a reason, we know what his deal is, and are you all happy now that I finally revealed wtf is up w dan?? lol how many of you guessed it??
> 
> also, i would just like to point out: i, myself, do not have AML or any form of cancer, however, one of my cousins did have a form of leukemia very similar to AML when he was younger (he is in remission now, thank goodness), and I have done hours and hours of research on it to make it seem as accurate as possible. I do not mean to offend or hurt anyone; this is just a characteristic of dan’s that i Incorporated into the story based on my own experiences with my cousin as well as based on all the readings i’ve looked at and all the videos i’ve watched. 
> 
> i hope this doesn’t offend anyone! i was really nervous about writing this fic for the fear that some people might get offended, but please know that i mean no harm towards anyone who has AML or any kind of cancer.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because we're all probably really anxious and/or excited that dip and pip are revealing what their big announcement is today, I'm going to be posting TWO chapters today just to keep us all distracted and whatever.
> 
> So, if you're reading this right as I posted it, expect another chapter to be up in around an hour or so! :D

“I’m realizing now that I was kind of a dick for dropping all that stuff on you today,” is the first thing Dan tells Phil when Phil picks up the phone that evening.

His voice sounds significantly weaker than it had earlier that day, and it sounded extremely weak even then. Phil assumes it’s from the chemotherapy.

He’s not going to lie – the second he got home, he started doing a bit of research on AML, just because he was curious as to what it involved, and he wasn’t sure if he should ask Dan because Dan probably didn’t want to talk about it.

He can already tell just from Dan’s attitude during their conversation earlier that day that Dan is probably really struggling with dealing with a lot. It’s only been a few months, from what Phil understands, since Dan was diagnosed. And he’s only sixteen. It’s a lot to deal with. Phil can’t even fathom how much mental turmoil Dan must be going through.

And here Phil was, thinking all these different kids of things about Dan, trying to find some kind of reason for his disappearances and whatever.

And, honestly, the clues were right in front of Phil’s nose, but he just never caught sight of them.

But, anyway, right after he got home from the hospital, he spent a few hours just googling different information on what AML was. He found out it stands for “Acute Myeloid Leukemia”, and it affects white blood cells and causes them to divide a lot slower than normal, which is why his immune system is so “screwed up”, as Dan would put it. But it can spread to other kinds of blood cells, and if not treated fast enough, some organs.

And it’s acute, as it says in the name, which means that if not treated fast enough, it can spread quickly and could potentially be fatal. But, since Dan and his family noticed symptoms, Phil is assuming, Dan was able to survive, but now he has to go through intensive treatment to help him get into remission, but Phil couldn’t find information on how long it would take him.

Obviously he was going to have chemotherapy for a while, but he could not find any information on how long it would take before he was able to go into remission. He’s in “remission induction” right now, from what he can gather from all these sources he’s been looking at, which means he’s getting chemotherapy around every week, sometimes with bigger spaces between them so he can recover. He might need a bone marrow transplant by the second cycle, if he goes through the usual four, like he’s meant to, but Phil couldn’t read into that.

It sounds scary; Phil can’t even believe that this kind of thing can happen to someone.

He read more stuff about it, like what actually happens during the chemotherapy, but he eventually just had to stop because the thought of it just made him feel sick to his stomach. It’s a scary thing to think about.

“You weren’t being a dick,” Phil tells him. He’s at his desk, with his phone pressed up against his ear and shoulder as he writes out notecards for anatomy class, both for him to study and for Dan whenever he comes back to tutoring.

And Phil has no idea when that is actually happening, as he doesn’t know how long Dan is going to be “out of commission” – he knows chemotherapy can make someone feel like complete and utter crap afterwards, so he doesn’t know if Dan will be coming back to school on Monday or not.

“You’re just saying that to be nice.”

“No,” Phil replies, scribbling down a definition onto his notecard, copying it directly from his notes laid out in front of him. “I’m being serious. You weren’t being a dick. I just probably shouldn’t have asked. It wasn’t my place to ask.”

“But you fucking saw me in a hospital gown in the middle of said hospital. You deserved an explanation…especially after all those texts and calls you sent me. You’re not the calmest person in the world, are you?”

Phil instantly knows Dan is just saying that to mess with him.

Phil laughs once. “Well, what was I meant to do? I thought you had disappeared off the face of the planet! You could’ve been abducted by aliens, taken by a pack of wolves-“

“Could’ve been like Romulus and Remus.”

“Ah, so you’ve been getting ahead in History class, haven’t you?” Phil asks. “I’m proud of you! Though, fun fact: they weren’t raised by wolves.”

Phil can picture Dan furrowing his eyebrows at that.

“Yeah, they were,” Dan says with almost a know-it-all manner. “I was reading the passage from Livy that we’re meant to read next week. It said they were raised by a she-wolf.”

“A she-wolf isn’t a wolf, Dan.”

“It’s literally in the name, though!”                                  

“A she-wolf is a prostitute.”

There’s a few brief moments of silence on the other end of the phone as Dan processes the information Phil just told him.

“No, it’s not.”

“Dan, check the footnotes-“

“ _All of my history teachers in the past fucking lied to me_! You can’t just throw this shit at me, Phil! I wasn’t prepared to have all of history ripped from me!”

“It was a myth, Dan. It probably didn’t even happen.”

“ _Philip Lester, I swear to God, if you don’t_ -”

Dan is abruptly cut off, and Phil can hear his mum telling him to quiet down. Phil covers his mouth as he snickers. He hears Dan’s door close. Dan huffs. “Don’t you dare fucking laugh, Lester.”

“Wasn’t even thinking of it,” Phil replies, smiling. “But I knew what you were trying to do: you were trying to change the subject. So, back to the previous argument: Dan, you are not a dick. No, I did not deserve an explanation. Yes, now I know and I promise I won’t tell. There. Case closed, jury adjourned, do not pass ‘go’ and do not collect 200 dollars.”

“Harsh,” Dan says. “But I do appreciate the use of Monopoly puns.”

“Thank you; I thought it fit quite well,” Phil replies. He sets down his pen and crosses his arm over his chest. “But seriously: don’t worry about you putting too much information on me all at once. You were probably just, like, over-whelmed, and I wasn’t helping.”

“Phil, for God’s sake-“

“Daniel, you are perfectly fine. I pressured you.”

“But you didn’t! You really didn’t! I was the one who made the decision to tell-“

“You didn’t have to tell me!”

“Yes, I did! You deserved to know!”

“We’re never going to agree on anything, are we?”

“…whatever.”

Phil snickers and laughs. “That’s your response? ‘Whatever’?”

“Well, Philip, mi amigo, we are both quite stubborn people,” Dan tells him, his voice back to a normal volume, “and we could easily just sit here for days just to try and prove one of us is right.”

“I would honestly sit here for however long I would need to in order to prove that you aren’t at fault,” Phil replies honestly. “Because you aren’t.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Seriously! It was my fault! I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Phil, we are stopping this argument.”

Phil shakes his head. “We can’t go to sleep, then. We can’t sleep on an argument.”

Dan huffs into the phone, the staticky sound quite loud in Phil’s ear. “My goodness, you are difficult.”

“Difficultly _right_.”

“…that doesn’t make sense. And you say that your best subject is English.”

“It is!”

“I’m not necessarily believing you,” Dan sings.

“I’m calling the police.”

Dan lets out a hearty laugh before having to clear his throat harshly. “Fuck,” he says.

Phil laughs as well. “Is that your favorite word?”

“Don’t judge me.”

“Never said I was.”

“Okay, but we’ve had about a billion tangents since we’ve started this conversation, and we still haven’t established who wins our original argument,” Dan points out. “We need to sort this out because I’m tired and according to you, I’m not allowed to sleep until we settle this.”

Phil smiles. “Exactly.” He looks out the window right beside his desk, seeing streetlights turning on as the sun slowly sets below the horizon line. “So, what are you thinking?”

Dan hums for a few moments, and Phil can hear him tap on some kind of surface. After a few seconds, he stops. “Okay, so…let’s just agree on the fact that we were both at fault in some way. We both could’ve done something better.”

“Okay…”

“We both did something wrong. We’ll agree on that. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And that’s fine. We’re human. We make mistakes.” He clears his throat. “And so, like, to make up for it, I…I promise that I’ll be more open to you about things. Like, and not lie by omission or whatever that’s called. Like, I’ll be honest and up-front with you when things are happening with me.”

Phil can’t help but smile at that. He knows it’s probably very hard for Dan to talk about this stuff and to be open about sharing these things, considering he doesn’t want anyone to know about his cancer, but apparently he trusts Phil enough to tell him some of these things.

They’re friends, after all. Phil thinks they’ve become friends over these past few weeks. And it warms Phil’s heart to know that Dan trusts him to know these things and to have this information presented to him.

“Okay, and _I_ promise to…” Phil starts to say, looking back out the window as he tries to find the words to say, “…um…well…um…I promise to still treat you the same. Like, not let anything get in the way of that.”

“You can say the word ‘cancer’. It’s not a trigger word for me.”

Phil laughs. “Okay, starting _now_ I won’t let your cancer get in the way of things.”

“Good,” Dan replies, and Phil can almost hear the smile on his face, which makes his chest flutter for some reason. “So…we’re good then? Full-stop?”

Phil nods his head, despite Dan’s inability to see him. “We’re all good. Back to normal…or, well, as normal as we can get, ‘cause…you know…we’re not normal.”

“Right,” Dan says while laughing. “Well, now that we’ve settled this argument, I think I’m going to head to bed. I’m kinda drained.”

“I’ll bet,” Phil replies, nodding his head. “I won’t keep you up any longer. Unless you want to start another pointless argument that ends in us blaming both of us.”

“No, I think one argument is good enough,” he suggests. He pauses for a few brief moments, and Phil waits for him to say something else.

“Um…thanks for…for not, like, getting pissed at me or whatever.”

Phil furrows his eyebrows. “Why would I have gotten pissed at you?” he asks.

Phil can bet Dan shrugs his shoulders right there. “I don’t know,” he answers. “Because I didn’t tell you up-front when I probably should have. Like, I should’ve just been honest in the first place.”

“But it isn’t something that’s easy to share,” Phil explains, shaking his head. “You were extremely brave to just come out and tell me that. I can bet it was really scary for you.”

“No,” Dan says. “I wasn’t scared. There was no way I could’ve been.”

“Really?” Phil asks, sounding surprised. He would’ve been freaking out, or he would’ve been trying to come up with an excuse on the spot. Phil was even just scared as the person being told those things; how in the world was Dan not afraid telling something that huge?

“I wasn’t scared because you’re my friend,” Dan answers, and Phil swears he can hear the sincerity in his voice.

Phil smiles. “I could never get mad at you for something like this.”

“Thanks,” Dan replies simply.

“You’re welcome,” Phil says.

“And _now_ I’m going to go sleep my life away,” Dan responds, now suddenly back to his normal attitude. “I’ll text or call tomorrow?”

“Great,” Phil says. “And actually get some sleep. Don’t spend your entire night watching meme music-“

“ _For fuck’s sake, Phil, let me live my life_!”


	11. Chapter Eleven

Tutoring got back on schedule right away after that, as Dan’s sickness went away, and he was able to return to school. They were behind again, as Dan had to make up his work from the week he had missed, and he still had homework from the beginning of the year (though during Dan’s time away, even through his cold and through his chemo treatment, he managed to finish some of it), but they didn’t mind at all working together, obviously.

They continued to meet in the library every other day after school, back in their little cubby hidden behind bookshelves where they could speak as loudly as they wanted without being too loud, bothering the middle-aged librarian.

And Dan was back to his normal self again. He didn’t constantly apologize for telling Phil so quickly about his cancer, and he wasn’t acting so serious about the whole situation he had been put in.

Really, he didn’t talk about it unless Phil asked him how he was doing, and sometimes he would respond with “oh, well, I didn’t eat with my meds this morning, so I kind of have a stomachache” or “oh, I’m dreading tomorrow because I have to go back to the hospital to see if my meds are working or if we should just try some other kind of chemo treatment” or “fucking hell, they’re still keeping me in my first cycle because nothing is working, but whatever; it happens” or something like those.

Other than that, they don’t mention it. There’s really no need to mention it – Dan is still the same Dan: sarcastic, hilarious, and full of memes. Just because Phil knows that he has leukemia doesn’t mean that he’s a different person now. Phil just knows a rather important piece of information about him now: one that really doesn’t matter to him, but something that he now understands.

But things are back to how they used to be, and Phil is thankful for that. He missed having his new friend to be with and get distracted from doing homework and studying with. It was weird – as if a part of him was missing.

That sounds like a stretch, considering the two haven’t known each other for that long, only around a month, but they’ve definitely gotten pretty close within this short amount of time.

And it’s nice, being able to have a new friend. Phil never thought he needed one, considering the decent size of his current friend group, but he was proven to be incorrect…but in a good way.

Tonight, one of the nights Dan and Phil were going to meet up for studying, they came to find out that they were fixing the lights in the library, meaning unless they wanted far more distractions than what they already cause themselves, they couldn’t study there.

So, Phil offered that they take the short walk over to his house, where they could study and Dan could stay over for dinner if he wanted. Dan agreed, but said there was a high possibility that he couldn’t stay for dinner, as his over-protective mum would probably slice his throat if he stayed out for too long. But, they would see how much time they ended up wasting.

And also, because of the leukemia, he has to be very, very careful about what he eats; ever since he was diagnosed, his mum forced him to change his diet, where he mostly eats organic food with no processed sugars or anything like that. Phil assured Dan that they could make accommodations, but Dan knew that his mum would probably murder him if he had food at someone else’s house.

Kathryn was the only other one home when Dan and Phil arrived from school. She was kind but, as with most mothers, was quite embarrassing upon introducing herself.

“Oh, Phil has told me quite a lot about you!” she had told him excitedly.

Phil laughed awkwardly.

“He really enjoys tutoring you! And you seem like such a lovely person.”

“Mum,” Phil said through gritted teeth, getting very annoyed with her.

“You two must be good friends!”

“Okay! We’re going to go up to my room! See you ‘round, Mum!”

Now they’re in Phil’s bedroom, which Phil didn’t consider the messy state of it when he invited Dan over, so Phil is currently on the floor, picking up his clothes and his old homework that he had already turned in and got a grade on and shoving them all under his bed to deal with later.

Luckily Dan isn’t vocalizing any complaint about it. He’s already made himself comfortable on the edge of Phil’s bed, looking around at everything in Phil’s room. Phil has never felt more self-conscious than he does in this moment.

“How can you sleep when you have both Sarah Michelle Gellar and Uma Thurman literally staring at you?” Dan asks as he rubs hand sanitizer on his hands. His comment is referring to the two rather large _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and _Kill Bill_ posters hanging by tacks on Phil’s wall. Phil supposes that it does look rather weird that from the angle Phil would be sleeping at, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Uma Thurman would both be staring down at him.

Quite the attractive image.

…why didn’t he suggest they study in the basement?

Phil awkwardly laughs. “I love my posters; don’t look down upon them,” he says, shaking his head. “Posters have feelings, too. Don’t judge them because they might seem creepy.”

“I’m just saying; their eyes literally follow me,” Dan says, moving his upper body slowly in different directions, still keeping his eyes focused on the posters. “Literally.”

Phil snickers and shoves his last pair of socks underneath his bed. “Say that again.”

Dan furrows his eyebrows and turns around to look at Phil. “Excuse me?” he asks, confused.

“Say that again,” Phil repeats.

“What?”

“Literally.”

Dan glances over to the side, then turns back to Phil, looking even more confused. “Literally?” he says slowly.

Phil chuckles to himself, but he doesn’t say anything as he brushes the wrinkles out of his shirt.

“What?” Dan asks, sounding almost offended.

Phil shakes his head as he walks over to his desk, where he had set down his bookbag. He starts pulling his textbooks and notebooks out from it, smiling to himself.

“What the fuck, man?” Dan questions, sitting up on his knees, as if to make himself taller. “Why are you laughing? This is just like primary school all over again; tell me why you’re laughing!”

“You say it so posh!” Phil replies, turning his head to the side to give Dan a cheeky grin.

Dan’s face turns bright red. “I’m not _posh_. I’m _articulate_ ,” he corrects.

Phil puts his hands up in defense as he slowly turns back towards his books. “Wow; you seem really passionate about that.”

“There’s a difference,” Dan responds. “My family grew up kinda…well…not _kinda_ …more like _definitely_ poor, so I’m not posh. But I’m articulate because my mother forced me to watch way too much _Winnie the Pooh_ when I was younger, so…you know…I talk like a bear who has an unhealthy obsession with honey.”

Phil smiles at him. “That’s the most adorable thing ever.”

“I will rip Uma Thurman off your wall if you continue to speak about this.” Dan sighs and looks around more at Phil’s room, his eyes searching the mess of the room, on the shelves and the walls and his desk, his eyes falling upon the little video camera Phil has sitting on top of his desk.

“That video camera pointing at the bed is kinda ominous,” Dan notes, pointing to the camera. “You have a night job that I don’t know about?” He wiggles his eyebrows.

Phil snickers and shoves his shoulder. “Shut up,” he says. “It’s just…just a camera. Nothing special about it.”

“What do you do with it?”

“Make videos,” Phil replies.

“Are you actually a porn star but you’re not telling me that?” Dan says, his voice dropping to a whisper, just to make sure that Kathryn doesn’t hear, despite her being a whole floor down from them.

“My goodness; no! They’re just, like, stupid. I don’t know,” Phil says. “Just something to do when I’m bored. They’re, like, skits and stuff. I mean…just to practice, ‘cause…like…wanna go into filmmaking or something? Directing, probably.”

Dan smiles. “Well, if you want to be a director, I’m sure you probably shouldn’t be talking down your own work if you want to get hired.”

Phil shakes his head. “Whatever.”

Dan pauses for a few seconds. “Are you going to show me any?”

“Mmm…not now,” Phil says.

“So never.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Dan settles back onto Phil’s bed. “Wow. Lovely. I love being rejected something from my friend.”

Phil knows he’s joking, but he changes the subject anyway. “Alright, time to get studying; it’s studying time,” he says, taking his books and plopping them onto the bed beside Dan. “Do you want any music? Since we’re in the privacy of my own home and don’t have to worry about cranky librarians?”

“Sure,” Dan replies with a smile, leaning back on Phil’s pillows.

“Something in particular?” Phil asks, pulling up his Spotify on his charging laptop placed in the middle of his desk.

“I like anything.”

“Sorry; I don’t know of a band called ‘Anything’.”

“Seriously; Uma is fucking coming down if you give me one more dad joke.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Phil says as he just clicks “play” on his entire music library on his Spotify, thinking that would be fine. He turns up the volume, and Muse’s “Megalomania” starts playing through the speakers.

Phil clears his throat and walks back over to his bed, taking his seat across from Dan, gathering his books. “Alright, you ready?”

“Wait, hold on a second,” Dan requests, squinting his eyes as if concentrating on something, as well has holding up a finger to silence Phil. He sits there in silence for a few seconds, his eyes widening when he hears the beat of the song start to play. “You listen to Muse?”

Phil smiles and lets out a noise that’s a mix between a cough and an exhale. He clears his throat awkwardly afterwards. “Uh…y-yeah, yeah,” he says. “And I’m assuming you do, too?”

“Yeah; I fucking love them,” Dan replies. “Literally, like, one of my favorites.”

“Mine, too,” Phil says. “I’ve been to, like, three of their concerts.”

“I’ve been to one,” Dan adds. “It was fucking awesome. Loads of weed, and I’m sure I got, like, secondhand high, but it was, like, the greatest night of my fucking life.” He smiles. “What’s your favorite album?”

“Probably _Origin of Symmetry_ , if I’m being honest,” Phil answers, gesturing to his laptop, as “Megalomania” is the final track on that album. “But ‘New Born’ is my favorite on the album. But the whole thing is really good.”

That apparently seemed to be the right answer, as Dan’s face brightens up at that. “ _Origin of Symmetry_ is mine, too! Holy crap! But my favorite is ‘Citizen Erased’.”

“That sounds like a song you would like, yeah,” Phil replies, smiling widely at him.

“What’s that supposed to mean, you dingbat?” Dan asks, slapping Phil’s shoulder.

“It’s not a bad thing! Stop!” Phil exclaims in response.

The conversation continued like that, tutoring having been completely and totally forgotten about as they talked about their favorite songs on the different Muse albums, trying to hit Matthew Bellamy’s falsetto vocal range (Kathryn had to come in and ask them to stop, saying if he didn’t, the neighbors were going to call the police), and then branching off to talking about other music, and then to just talking about the most random topics that didn’t really have to do with anything.

It was two hours that just seemed to magically fly by before they realized that they didn’t even open their textbooks and they had gone an hour over their time. Dan checked his phone and his mother was literally texting him incessantly, asking him where he was.

He called her back and tried to convince her to let him stay over at Phil’s house for dinner, but she declined and insisted she come pick him up, even though Kathryn could easily take him home. Phil assumed she was just worried about germs, despite the fact that, number one, Kath’s car is freaking spotless, and number two, Dan still has that giant-ass bottle of hand sanitizer with him.

So, without even having started on the excessive amount of homework they needed to complete from the week Dan was gone, they packed up their things and waited for Dan’s mum together by the door.

“So, yeah, maybe it’s not the best idea that we study at one of our houses,” Phil says with a laugh, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“Probably not,” Dan replies, shaking his head. “But…well…they’re working on the library all week, so…”

“True.”

“We can meet over at my house tomorrow if you’re not busy,” Dan suggests, though it sounds more like a question. “My mum will literally, like, be watching over our shoulders to make sure we’re studying, and she’ll probably make you drown yourself in hand sanitizer, but we can do it there if you want. But I can get started on some of the homework tonight, that way we don’t have much to work on tomorrow.”

Phil nods his head. “Sounds like a plan.”

Right as he says this, the horn from Dan’s mum’s car honks loudly, and Dan picks up his backpack with a huff, shaking his head as he places it on his shoulder. “Well, I’ll be texting you crying for help with homework.”

“Tutoring via text: it’s the new age of technology,” Phil says with a laugh as he opens the front door, holding it open for Dan.

“Fuck off,” Dan replies as he walks out the door.

“It was nice seeing you, too.”

Dan flips him off behind his back so his mum doesn’t see, and Phil laughs out loud as he closes the door, watching from the window as Dan leaves.

\---------------------------------

The next day involved a meeting with Mr. Simpson, who wanted to make sure everyone was getting a good start on the semester-long assignment. So, while everyone in the class was doing the reading of _The Catcher in the Rye_ for class, Simpson would call people one-at-a-time out into the hallway to discuss with him how the assignment was going.

Phil got called towards the end of the period, as he was in the latter-half of the alphabet and some of these meetings were going longer than expected, meaning they would also pool into tomorrow’s class, which was an exciting thought for everyone in the class.

He sat down on the old rickety chair in front of Mr. Simpson, his rubric in front of him.

“Hello, Phil. How is the assignment going?” Simpson asked him.

Phil nods his head once. “Fine,” he responds simply. Phil isn’t exactly sure what he’s looking for with this.

“Have you thought of or started a project yet?”

See, Phil doesn’t want to be that teacher’s pet who has already done all the service hours required, even though he _has_ done that already, so he figures it would just be easier to make it seem like he’s probably in the same stage that everyone else is in…or at least _says_ they’re in.

“Um…well, I’ve been thinking about being a tutor…i-if that would count for service hours,” Phil replies.

Simpson purses his lips and nods his head. “Yes, that would definitely count,” he says. “Have you thought about tutoring anything in particular? Any kind of subject?”

Phil shrugs his shoulders. “I mean, not really, but I think…I think I’d be open to tutoring anything.” Which isn’t necessarily true, as he still doesn’t think he’s that good of a tutor, considering how easily he and Dan get off track. He’s just trying to make Simpson happy with his answers.

“And have you signed up with anybody?”

“I’ve been talking to the Student Success Center.”

“Good. That’s a great place to start. And just keep in mind when you start doing this that you don’t focus on the fact that this was originally intended for an assignment. You want to actually help the person out as best as you can. Don’t do it just because you want to get an A – keep the other person’s feelings in mind.”

Well, that’s easy enough for Phil. Yeah, even though he originally intended to do this because of a grade, he still enjoys helping out Dan and being with him and studying with him. It feels good to help him out, and, of course, Dan is his friend, and Phil wants nothing more than to see him succeed.

Phil nods his head.

“Great. You’re on your way to a great assignment, Phil.”

Phil smiles and gets up out of the seat, taking his things with him, letting out a long, deep sigh of relief.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's a late upload! I was busy working today, so I couldn't sit down to post until right now! Sorry for that!

Dan wasn’t at school the next day. Phil found out via a text; he apparently had caught a fever that night, so his mum instructed that he stay home for fear that it could turn into something worse. Dan swore that he was fine and that his mum was just over-reacting, as she tends to do with these kinds of “medical things”. Phil guessed she was also going to be the kind of person who claimed he got the fever because he spent time over at Phil’s house, and perhaps it wasn’t as clean or germ-free as it probably should’ve been, considering Dan’s weak immune system, but Dan didn’t mention that.

They planned to reschedule, to meet up when Dan was feeling better. But, at around lunchtime, Phil got another text from Dan, telling him that he had convinced his mum to let Phil come over to his house to study and get caught up on homework, as Dan’s fever broke.

So, after school, Phil rushed back to his house, changed out of his uniform into his day clothes, got his bike, and rode over to Dan’s house, which was a good ten minutes away from Phil’s house. Phil guesses that, even though Dan’s house is equidistant to the school as Phil’s is, Dan’s mum probably makes him ride with her to school so that he doesn’t potentially catch a cold from walking outside in the cold or riding the bus where he could get a lot of germs.

Phil is just guessing she’s probably one of those extremely over-dramatic parents. But she almost has a good reason to be like that: her son has cancer and was only just recently diagnosed. It’s probably really scary for her – she wants to do everything in her power to make sure Dan stays healthy.

But at the same time, she should know that she’s just slightly over-reacting to some of these things, like not making Dan go to school just because he had a little fever. He wasn’t _sick_ , and it’s probably just because his white blood cell count is still low, or because of being over at Phil’s house for two hours last night, where they weren’t necessarily making sure that he was protected from germs.

But what does Phil know? He shouldn’t even be thinking about this. It’s literally none of his business.

He pulls up to Dan’s house, double-checking the text Dan sent him to make sure it was the right one. He slips his phone into his pocket and walks up the driveway, leaving his bike sitting on the porch of the house. He walks up to the front door and rings the doorbell.

He waits a few moments, tapping his feet awkwardly and trying not to focus on the dropping temperature outside; it’s autumn, October is just around the corner, and soon Phil will be seeing his breath anytime he steps outside.

After a few moments, the door opens, and the woman that Phil had seen at the hospital is standing at the door, looking like she has just come home from work, as she appears tired but still dressed nicely.

“Hello?” she asks.

Phil smiles. “Hi,” he replies. “I’m Phil, and I’m here to study with Dan.”

She nods and gives a small smile as she opens the screen door, allowing Phil to come in. Phil steps inside the warm house and Mrs. Howell closes the door behind him. “It’s nice to meet you,” she tells him once she’s done that. Her voice is just as pos- _articulate_ as Dan’s.

“It’s nice to meet you as well,” Phil replies as he leans down and unties his shoes.

“So, you’re Daniel’s tutor?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

Phil nods his head. “Yeah,” he answers. “I really enjoy working with him.”

She nods her head as well. “Daniel really enjoys it as well,” she responds. “He got rather upset at me because of his fever this morning because I made him stay home. But he convinced me that he really needed to work on his homework.” She shrugs her shoulders. “I’m not exactly sure where he all of a sudden is now so enthused with getting his work done. He’s always been a bit of a procrastinator.”

Phil just smiles awkwardly and nods his head as he fully takes off his shoes. He stands up and adjusts his clothes so there are no wrinkles.

“Well, remind me before you leave that you should probably get his chemo schedule. He told me that he told you about his illness; is that correct?”

Phil takes a mental note of how she refers to it as an “illness”. Quite odd, in Phil’s opinion, but he doesn’t say anything about that. He just nods his head for the umpteenth time.

“Yes, so I’ll give you that schedule so that you know when to plan around that for your tutoring. And if you wouldn’t mind, could you use some hand sanitizer before you go up to Daniel’s room? It’s just a precautionary; his immune system is really weak…”  She gestures to the bottle of hand sanitizer sitting on a table leaned against the wall by the staircase. “And Daniel also has some in his room, so if you would continue to make sure to use it while you’re here…”

Phil nods his head. He walks over and does as he is asked, and then Mrs. Howell motions to the staircase with her head, meaning she is going to be leading him up the stairs. Phil allows her to usher him up the stairs to the second floor, stopping right at the top of the stairs to the door right to the left of it.

The door is closed, so Mrs. Howell knocks on it thrice. “Daniel? Phil is here,” she says. She turns around to Phil and smiles. “I’ll be downstairs if you two need me.”

She heads down the stairs, and the second Phil hears her start walking down on the first floor, the door to Dan’s room opens. Dan is standing there in the doorway, dressed in his pyjamas, his hair a mess, and bags under his eyes.

“My mum told me to put on day clothes but I didn’t want to, so sorry she was the one who had to greet you at the door,” he tells Phil, smiling at him before stepping out of the way to allow Phil to step inside his bedroom.

It’s much cleaner than Phil’s was, but it’s still slightly messy, what with the mess of textbooks all over Dan’s bed and floor, his ever-growing pile of laundry growing in his hamper by his desk, and his mess of medications sitting on his nightstand.

The lights except the one on his nightstand are all turned off, and his curtains are covering the windows. His laptop his charging below his bed, and his phone is plugged in as well. His bedsheets are rumpled, meaning he’d probably been in bed all day.

Dan walks over to his bed and drops down on it. “Welcome to my humble room,” he says, holding his arms out in a grand gesture. “It’s the most beautiful room you have ever been in, huh?”

“Definitely,” Phil replies, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. While Dan seemed to be so comfortable when visiting Phil’s house for the first time, Phil is always the complete opposite – he is always awkward, not knowing where exactly to sit or to stand or whatever. He’s just awkward that way.

Dan looks at him with that look of “you’re such an idiot; come over here and sit down”. He pats the middle of the bed on a spot where books aren’t laid, asking Phil to come sit with him. Phil awkwardly smiles and walks over, taking his seat right where Dan had patted.

“No need to be so awkward,” Dan says. “It’s me, ya boy.”

“Was that supposed to be a Buzzfeed: Unsolved reference?”

“Yes, but also it’s just me being me. It’s a Dan reference.” He cracks his neck and settles more into his bed. “Anyway, sorry I couldn’t be at school today. Mum freaks out at the slightest hint that I might have a cold, so…you know, gotta do as the mother pleases.”

“That sucks,” Phil replies. “What about your dad?”

“He’s at work all the time,” Dan responds. He shrugs his shoulders. “Literally. Or he’s in his office _doing_ work. He’s like one of those stereotypical dads in those, like, cheesy Disney movies where the dad just, like, doesn’t pay attention to his family because he’s,” he says this next part in a weird voice, flailing his arms around, “ _so caught up in his goddamn work!_ ”

He shrugs again as he continues to speak. “It happens, I guess. And, I mean, my mum just kinda tries to make up for it. She’s way too attentive sometimes, though. It’s not necessarily the most fun thing in the world to deal with because she likes to know what I’m doing at all times, she has to check my temperature every fucking time she sees me, she won’t let me do shit. Like, we’ve been planning for the past, like, five thousand years for us to go on this holiday before Christmas, and now they’re considering cancelling it just because I have cancer, even though I think I would be perfectly fine to go. We already had to cancel our summer holiday because I got sick.” He shakes his head. “It fucking sucks. It’s like, I get it, but for God’s sake: let me live like a teenager for once.”

Phil frowns. He understands Dan’s mother’s concern. Obviously: her child has cancer where his cells that fight off infections aren’t multiplying that well anymore. Of-freaking-course that’s terrifying, and all she wants for her child is to know that he’s safe and healthy and thriving.

But, as Dan mentioned, apparently she’s too attentive, and she makes sure of these things way too much and in an over-bearing manner, where Dan is confined to A.) his home, B.) the hospital, and C.) school (but not as much as A and B).

That’s got to really, really, _really_ suck. Like, Phil seriously understands that Dan’s mum has some concerns about her son being safe and healthy, but he’s only sixteen. He needs to have a break to be able to feel like a teenager, because that’s necessary for him at this point in his life.

“I’m sorry,” Phil says, since he doesn’t know what else to say at this moment.

Dan shrugs his shoulders. “It happens, I guess.”

Phil shakes his head. “No, not necessarily,” he replies, adjusting his seating so his legs are crossed. “She’s not letting you have an actual…like…experience as a teenager. And that’s not really…it’s not okay.”

“She’s just so goddamn over-protective,” Dan says, placing his hands on his stomach as he stares up at the ceiling. “Like, for Christ’s sake: just because my body is trying to kill me doesn’t mean I can’t be normal.” He blinks a few times. “Well…as normal as someone like me can possibly be.”

Phil snickers, but quickly switches his attitude of one of concern. “Have you brought it up to her?”

“She won’t listen. She loves taking care of me, but I swear to God she never wants to hear anything I have to say to her. Never.” He shakes his head and lets out a long sigh. “My life is the greatest, ain’t it? I used ‘ain’t’ ironically there as well. Don’t worry.”

“Wasn’t even thinking about it,” Phil replies before clearing his throat. He’s not really sure what to say. He’d love to help Dan out in any way that he can, but what that way _is_ , exactly, Phil isn’t sure. So it’s hard to say what he can do. “But…maybe your dad?”

It’s the only thing Phil could think of to say.

“He’s the same way,” Dan answers. “In one ear, out the other. Actually, I don’t even think it goes in at all. He, like…isn’t…” he lets out a sigh, “…they aren’t attentive.” He shrugs for the umpteenth time. “They just don’t care. It’s just me and my brother out on my own.”

“You have a brother?” Phil questions.

Dan nods his head. “He’s six years younger than me. His name’s Adrian. He’s over at my grandmother’s house right now. He always goes there after school. I used to, before I got sick, but now that I am, my mum doesn’t want me over there since she needs to keep her eyes on me 24/7. It sucks because I’m so close with my grandma, but…whatever.”

Phil blinks a few times. “I can take you over there,” he says. “Like…we can study for half-an-hour after school and then go over to your grandma’s house if you want to. It’d be hard, I guess, but…we could make it work.”

Dan shakes his head. “It’s fine. She comes over and visits sometimes. I just miss being over at her house all the time. She’s great.” He looks over to the side, looking out of the window. “I guess I just miss having freedom. And independence. God, that sounds soppy, but it’s fucking true.” He looks back down at the books on his bed. “We should probably get to studying.”

However, instead of opening the books in front of him, he stares down blankly at his lap. He sits there for a few brief moments, just breathing deeply, staring down at his lap. Phil stares back at him, waiting for him to do or say something. Phil can see that it looks as though he’s probably thinking really hard about something.

After a few seconds, Dan looks back up at Phil with wide eyes. “What if you were to do it?”

Phil furrows his eyebrows. “Do what?”

“Help me be a teenager,” Dan says. “Okay, that sounds weird. But you get what I mean, right?”

Phil stares at him blankly.

“Like, okay, so…like...some days, like, when I don’t have homework, we can…like…pretend like we’re tutoring or something, but we can, like, go out and do…like…normal things that my mum wouldn’t want me to do.”

Phil continues to stare at him.

Helping Dan be a normal teenager? Phil never thought once in his life he would be asked to do something like this.

And what does that even mean? What would Dan want to do? And they could easily get caught by Dan’s mum, and then Phil wouldn’t be allowed to tutor Dan anymore.

But they could do it, like, a few times and see how it works out? Maybe?

Phil understands exactly why Dan wants to do this. Anyone would understand. The poor guy is basically locked up under his parents’ watch all the time. He’s suffocating, and he needs to be let go. He needs to have some kind of freedom.

And Phil could be some way to provide that.

“Okay.”

Dan’s eyes widen even more, and it’s even like his body moves backwards slightly, as if he was surprised.

“What?”

Phil chuckles. “Okay.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yeah. My middle name is Serious.”

Dan looks over to the side for a few seconds, and then looks back up at Phil. “Wow, that was easier than I thought it would be. I had defenses and arguments prepared.”

Phil chuckles. “Sorry,” he replies.

Dan lets out a long breath. “Pfft…you made this way too easy for me. I needed a fight.”

“I’m a peace-maker.”

“Of course you fucking are.”

Phil beams. “Alright. So, we’ll work all that out at another time, but we should probably get to studying; we have a test in English class tomorrow, so we should probably get you ready for that.”

“ _Now_ you make my life difficult. For fuck’s sake, Phil…”


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Dan’s first idea for what to do to “become more like a teenager” came as a shock to Phil.

Dan texted him late one school night.

 **Dan**  
so im on the schools like calendar thing right now  
(00:03)

And like  
(00:03)

im intrigued  
(00:04)

 **Phil**  
Why?  
(00:04)

 **Dan**  
weeeeeellll  
(00:05)

this fridayyy  
(00:05)

theyre having the fall play  
(00:05)

they meaning the drama club  
(00:05)

 **Phil**  
And you’d like to go?  
(00:06)

 **Dan**  
si mi amigo  
(00:06)

 **Phil**  
what time is it at?  
(00:06)

 **Dan**  
7  
(00:07)

 **Phil**  
how will we work that around w your parents?  
(00:07)

 **Dan**  
idk i mean  
(00:07)

likeee  
(00:07)

i guess like tell her we were wanting to study later  
(00:08)

like tell her that you have a club meeting or something  
(00:08)

so we have to meet at a later time  
(00:08)

that could work right  
(00:08)

 **Phil**  
I mean, I guess we’ll find out  
(00:08)

The next day, when Dan came in to tutoring, he informed Phil that he convinced his mother that morning that they were going to be tutoring together at the school on Friday at around seven.

So, that Friday evening, at around six forty-five, Phil rode his bike over to the school, arriving just at the same time when Dan got dropped off by his mother. However, even though Phil expected her to and because he was over by them, where she dropped Dan off, Mrs. Howell didn’t give any sort of greeting; the second Dan came out of the car and grabbed his backpack, she took off, not even giving a second glance to Phil, who awkwardly stood waving at the car.

“Is your mum okay?” Phil asks after he and Dan greeted each other. They’re now walking side-by-side over to the auditorium, where only a few people were gathered inside the entrance of the building, standing in a short queue to get their tickets for the show.

“She was worried about me being out too late,” Dan says. “She likes to think that I, like, go to bed at fucking ten at night, so she’s worried I’m going to be out too late. If only she knew that my regular bedtime is, like, three AM.”

“How do you even survive staying up that late every night?” Phil questions, sticking his hands in the pockets of the jacket he’s wearing. “I can handle that on the weekends, but during the week…”

Dan shrugs his shoulders.

“I’ve got it: you’re a robot,” Phil says jokingly, though he looks at Dan with a proud expression on his face, as if he thought he was correct.

Dan shoves him. “For fuck’s sake…” he mutters.

They walk into the auditorium entrance together, and they only have to wait a few moments before they both get their tickets, which were free for them since they are students. They then made their way into the auditorium, where unfortunately not a lot of people were there (unfortunate for the drama club, but then again, not many people at their school would probably be wanting to watch a theater production on a Friday night), but Dan and Phil still found themselves sitting more towards the back, but in the center section of seats.

“So, what’re we seeing?” Phil asks as he looks at the program they were handed when they walked in. Dan is currently rubbing hand sanitizer all over his hands and arms; Phil had already put some on before they walked in.

“ _Picasso at the Lapin Agile_ ,” Dan answers, not even reading off the program. He looks up at Phil. “Did you not look it up before you agreed to come with me?”

Phil shakes his head.

“Do you not know what it’s about?”

Phil shakes his head again. “Am I meant to research it before I go see it?”

“Well, I mean, I do,” Dan replies, settling back into his seat. “I’m interested by this kind of stuff.”

“Well, tell me what it’s about,” Phil says, crossing his legs and placing his head in his hand, looking at Dan intriguingly. “Share with me the knowledge you learned.”

Dan snickers and looks down at the floor as he tells Phil. “Well, it’s a comedy written in 1993, and it’s about this bar in France in 1904, the Lapin Agile, where Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein meet and just share their ideas about what’s going to happen in the 20th century and what’s going to happen in, like, their careers and things. I know it sounds boring, but it’s a comedy, so I’m sure it’s going to be good.”

“Are you into theater?” Phil asks.

Dan nods his head. “Yeah,” he answers. He clears his throat and looks off to the side, adjusting his seating. “I, uh…I used to take drama classes when I was younger. Was in a lot of stage productions and things, and I was in the drama club at my old schools back in Wokingham.” He smiles. “One of my greatest accomplishments was when I was in year ten, I was, like, fourteen or something, and this theater thing I was in was doing a production of _Romeo and Juliet_ , and I was cast as Benvolio. Was literally, like, one of the greatest fucking achievements of my life. Won an award for that at one of those silly thespian festivals. It was like a Shakespearean award or something. It’s in storage somewhere. But…yeah.”

Phil blinks at him for a few seconds. “Have you done any more theater?” he asks.

“Not since then.”

“Why not?”

Dan sighs and sits back in his seat. He speaks very quietly, despite there not being many people in the theater, but Phil guesses it’s because he’s about to share something that he doesn’t want anyone else to hear. “Well…year eleven was when I kind of…started getting pretty ill. Not, like, the AML ill, but it was like early signs of it. Probably started around…maybe, like…around January or something like that.

“And we were just about to start doing _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , but I couldn’t make it the day of the auditions because I was so, so, so, so, _so_ ill that morning and couldn’t even get out of bed. And then, like, I was fucking devastated, of course, and…I don’t know…I just kind of stopped, and then the cancer thing is happening, so…you know…can’t really do that when I’m going to fucking chemotherapy every fucking week. I feel so fucking drained and sick after it happens that I wouldn’t be able to survive rehearsals.”

He shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head. “It happens.”

Phil huffs. He’s realized this about Dan: he constantly tries to pass off his cancer like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t affect him. But Phil can see in Dan’s facial expression and can hear in his tone that it really bothers him.

Because, what Phil can tell from his little explanation of his drama history, Dan really has a passion for drama and theater. Not even just a passion: a talent. If he was cast as Benvolio in a production of _Romeo and Juliet_ , one of the main, main characters, then he’s got to be really, really good at what he does. Phil can bet that.

But now that this unfortunate thing has happened, he can’t do it until his cycles get further along and treatments calm down, or, hell, even when he’s in remission. Because, after all, he’s only a few months into chemo and medications. It’s got to be really tough on him.

Dan lets out a long sigh and turns his head back to Phil, looking at him with a friendly smile. “But it’s been a while since I’ve been in a theater. I was beginning to miss it.”

“And that’s why you wanted to do this first?” Phil asks.

Dan nods his head. “My mum would eviscerate me if she found out I was here.”

“Ooh: ten-point vocabulary word.”

Dan snickers and hits Phil’s shoulder. “Fucking be quiet.”

They sit there in silence again, smiling to themselves as they hear the rest of the audience have their little conversations. Phil plays with his ticket stub in his pocket, and Dan thumbs the edges of the program, flipping through the pages.

Soon, the lights begin to dim, meaning the show is about to start.

Just as Phil settles more comfortably into his seat, Dan leans over to his ear.

“You know how you said your dream is to be a director?”

Phil nods his head.

“Well…my dream is to be an actor.”

Without even waiting for Phil’s response, Dan turns his attention away from him and back to the stage as the announcer asks them to quiet down and prepare themselves for the show.

\--------------------------------------

“Oh my God, that was so much funnier than I was expecting it to be,” Phil says with a smile on his face as he and Dan walk up onto the pavement outside of the Shakeaway near their school.

It’s only around an hour-and-a-half later, after the play had completed. Phil had the idea that they go grab a treat of some kind before going back to school for Dan to get picked up. Dan seemed a little reluctant, since they were already a half-hour over their normal time, but they figured perhaps Dan’s mum wouldn’t be too concerned, considering Dan was at school with Phil.

Well…in this case, just with Phil.

But it’s fine.

“Theater can be funny!” Dan exclaims, grinning ear-to-ear. “It’s not just iambic pentameter and people killing themselves.”

“I never doubted that theater was funny!” Phil says as they walk over to the door of the shake shop. “I just wasn’t expecting this particular show to be as funny as it was.” He opens the door and allows Dan to walk in first, following in behind him, the cold temperatures hitting them like a brick wall.

“Why, because it had Albert Einstein in it as a main character?”

“Maybe,” Phil replies as he and Dan walk up to the register. “But holy crap, that one random character was freaking hilarious.”

“I’ve never been here,” Dan says quietly to Phil, changing the subject, when the girl working the register smiles at them.

Phil furrows his eyebrows. “Really?” he asks, surprised.

Dan shakes his head.

“Well, it’s just making your own milkshake. It’s fine.”

“But I don’t have any money, either.”

“It’s fine; I’ll pay,” Phil replies, pulling his wallet out from his back pocket. He sees Dan begin to protest, and he shakes his head. “Stop. It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“But I feel like I-“

Phil doesn’t listen as he turns to the cashier and orders himself his shake, followed by Dan nervously and awkwardly following afterwards, reluctantly allowing Phil to pay for his drink.

Phil got his usual Oreo with marshmallow, and Dan got fat-free frozen yogurt (to keep it just a little bit healthier, but the amount of sugar in it was still, obviously, very high) with Malteser’s and butterscotch. They sat down together in the shop by the window to drink their shakes.

“Do you have diet restricts because of your AML?” Phil asks quietly to make sure the other people in the shop couldn’t hear them.

Dan stirs around his drink with his spoon. “Eat healthy, basically,” he answers. “I’m not allowed a lot of sugar. Can’t remember the last time I’ve had something as diabetus as this.”

“Diabetus?” Phil questions.

Dan smirks and shakes his head. “Shut up. You know what I mean.” He licks some of his shake off his spoon.  He closes his eyes and smiles, his eyelids fluttering. “Man, I miss artificial sugar. It’s so fucking good, man.”

Phil smiles as he watches Dan’s reaction to the shake. “Be careful; you might get on a sugar high.”

“I’m already on one. I haven’t had any kind of sweet in so fucking long,” Dan says, shaking his head as he scoops up more of his shake. “Mum doesn’t allow it. All of a sudden now that I have this to deal with, can’t fucking have sugar for some rucking reason.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“It happens?” Phil guesses, raising his eyebrows.

“How’d you know I was going to say that?” Dan asks, looking quite surprised.

Phil smiles. “I’ve caught on to your little phrases.”

“I’m too predictable. I need to switch it up,” Dan says, shaking his head in disbelief. “Can’t believe my banter isn’t original anymore.”

“Or I’m just a psychic.”

“You’ve used that one before, too! We’re both unoriginal, for Christ’s sake…”

Phil snickers and takes a bite of his shake. “It’s late, we’re eating unreasonable amounts of sugar, and it’s been a long week. What do you expect?”

Dan laughs and shakes his head. “Too true, man. Too true.”

Phil smiles and rests his chin on his hand. “So…you have any other plans for your journey on becoming a ‘normal teenager’?” he asks, using air-quotes with his free hand.

“Well, I’d say my first time going to Shakeaway and my first time having sugar in, like, four months or so should surely count for something along those lines,” Dan replies, holding up his cup. “But as for other things…I haven’t really thought about.” He looks off to the side, pursing his lips. “Well…I lied. I do have some in mind, but I feel like I want them to be spontaneous. Like, I we won’t plan it. It’ll just happen.”

“Hmm. Interesting.”

“Gotta keep you on the edge. Keeps you young.”

“I’m only half a year older than you.”

“Whatever. Shut up and eat your shake.”

“Eat yours: I paid good money for that.”

“ _Let me take my time, Phil; I haven’t had this much sugar at one time in almost half a year. Give me a fucking break_ …”


	14. Chapter Fourteen

The next time Dan had an idea for what they could, as Dan told him, it happened without any warning.

Phil had just been sitting in art class, listening to the white noise CD that their chill art teacher put into her stereo from the 90s after instructing everyone to work on some of their semester projects, Phil currently working on a rather messy watercolor painting of the Manchester skyline.

None of his friends were in the same period as him for art class, so it was just him sitting at a table full of people that he doesn’t necessarily speak to that often, so Phil is just minding his own business, trying not to make a mess of his artwork. He’s already had to restart five times already, and he needs to have five projects with five different mediums by the end of the semester. This is only his first project.

But just as he thinks he’s getting into the zone and thinking that perhaps he’ll manage to finish this part of his project today, his phone vibrates in his pocket, not only knocking himself out of the zone, but everyone also at the table as well. He blushes and hastily apologizes as he pulls his phone out of his pocket before it vibrates again.

Underneath the table, he turns on his phone and sees a text from Dan. He looks up, making sure the art teacher isn’t watching him, and he reads the text quietly to himself.

 **Dan**  
yo waddup  
(10:42)

 **Phil**  
you just gave me a heart attack. As well as everyone else at my table  
(10:43)

 **Dan**  
whoops  
(10:43)

anyway  
(10:43)

so im bored  
(10:43)

im in study hall  
(10:43)

i dont have lunch until 1  
(10:43)

so im practically dying  
(10:44)

and my next class  
(10:44)

is fucking GYM  
(10:44)

so i need help  
(10:44)

soooooooo  
(10:44)

i was thinkingggg  
(10:44)

we should…skip class??????  
(10:44)

cause like you have lunch in one period right?  
(10:44)

and i have gym and then study and then lunch  
(10:45)

so itll be like we dont even have to be there  
(10:45)

Phil reads through these texts a few times, slumping his shoulders. He supposes this is one of the “real” things that Dan will be wanting to do in order to rebel against his parents’ wishes and in order to become more like a “normal person”, even though Phil has never skipped a class in his life unless it was for something academic related, like needing to visit a teacher or making up a test for another class.

But skipping school just to skip school? Phil has never even _thought_ about doing that. He’s not the kind of person who would ever do that on his own time; he’s too much of a goody-two-shoes to want to do that.

But something in him is reminding him that this would only be for his anatomy class (which was just a study hall for the exam tomorrow) and lunch period. He’s not actually skipping any “real” classes, and you are technically allowed to leave campus during lunch hours, as some people like to walk home to have lunch, or some people get takeaway from somewhere nearby. So, there’s nothing telling him he can’t miss his regular lunch period and the study hall.

And Dan would only be missing out on PE, study hall, and lunch. So, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal; people skip out on gym all the time, claiming that they have an exam to make up for another class during that period, claiming they neglected to bring their gym clothes, or just straight-up not showing up. People do it all the time because all you have to do to make it up is write a short paragraph on a sport or something athletics-related. It’s basically a blow-off class that you’re just required to take all throughout your secondary school experience.

So it really wouldn’t be that bad…

 **Phil**  
where would we even go?  
(10:47)

 **Dan**  
idk  
(10:47)

youre the one from here i figured you knew places to go  
(10:47)

Just as Phil is about to start listing options, Dan quickly interrupts him with another text.

ok you know what  
(10:48)

we have ten minutes til this period gets out    
(10:48)

lets meet out by the bike racks outside the aud and discuss after this period  
(10:48)

yeah lets do that  
(10:48)

shit yeah ttyl im not meant to have my phone out right now  
(10:48)

“Phil, please return to doing your art and put your phone away,” Phil’s art teacher requests, causing Phil to look up at her, smiling awkwardly when he notices that literally everyone else in the room is also looking at him.

He quickly apologizes and curses Dan under his breath before returning to his art project.

\--------------------------------------

They met out by the aud just as they agreed on, and they found themselves walking away from the school without even fully deciding on what they were going to do, as they were afraid they were going to get caught by school security.

They found themselves at the shopping center only a short walk away from the school, which was right near where the Shakeaway was. Phil decided to take Dan there because he figured they were going somewhere for lunch, as it was close to lunchtime for the both of them, and the food court has a lot of options for them. Not necessarily the healthiest, of course, but they have some places that they could splurge some of their daily caloric intake on. And also because it’s probably just going to become a “thing” that Phil will sometimes take Dan to places where he can eat junk food since his parents won’t allow it.

Everyone needs to treat themselves to it sometimes, right?

Well, Dan seemed to not want to be at the shopping center necessarily for the food. The second they stepped into the shopping center, something else caught his eyes instead.

The ice-skating rink.

Every year at around late October, early November, the shopping center sets up a mini indoor ice-skating rink at one of the main areas of the building, in this area where little concerts were sometimes held or other things that requires a lot of room.

That seemed to catch Dan’s attention far more than any of the food options that were available to them.

“You guys have an ice-skating rink?” Dan asks, not even looking at Phil. He has a surprised expression on his face.

Phil nods his head. “It’s, like, a pop-up ice-skating rink that gets put up this time of the year,” he replies. “Like, every fall and winter they put it up.”

Dan stares at it. There’s only two or three people on it, skating freely around the perimeter. It’s only a Wednesday at lunch time, so of course not a lot of people are out ice-skating at this time.

Phil notices Dan biting his bottom lip, as if not realizing that they’re literally standing in the middle of the shopping center, not moving at all.

“Do you…do you want to go ice-skating?” Phil asks, sticking his hands in his pockets.

“I’ve never gone before,” Dan responds, looking back up at Phil.

“It’s not that hard,” Phil replies.

“And it’s probably really expensive.”

“I can pay.”

Dan slumps his shoulders and shakes his head. “I can’t have you pay for even _more_ things for me. I can do it,” he says. “Or maybe I can make it up to you by paying for both of us.”

“You don’t-“

Before Phil can complete his sentence, Dan is already walking over to the rental booth for the ice-skates, fishing his wallet out from his back pocket.

\---------------------------------

Dan definitely didn’t end up paying for the both of them, as it would’ve costed eight pounds each, for both being allowed to skate on the rink as well as renting ice-skates, but Dan promised that at some time in the future he would pay Phil back for the Shakeaway he bought him after the play.

They got their rental skates and sat down on a bench right outside the skating rink to put them on, putting their backpacks and other things underneath said bench before they decided to head out to the rink.

They certainly got some strange looks, as they were still dressed in their school uniforms (and because of the amount of hand sanitizer Dan was using), and it definitely looked like they shouldn’t be there right now, but no one said anything directly to them, luckily for them.

“I mean, this definitely will beat going to gym and lunch, right? And this can even count as my gym activity for the day,” Dan notes as he unsteadily, with his hands out to his side, as if he can’t keep balance, walks beside Phil on the carpeted floor leading up to the rink.

Phil laughs as he walks confidently in front of Dan. “Of course,” he replies. “But you’ve seriously never gone ice-skating before?”

Dan shakes his head. “I’ve never gone. I’ve roller-skated before, but never ice-skated.”

“Then you’ll be fine,” Phil replies as he steps down onto the small rink, not even holding onto the wall. He places his hands in the pockets of his pants.

“You’re so confident,” Dan says, still leaning against the barrier, not yet having gotten onto the rink yet.

Phil chuckles and shrugs his shoulders. “I’ve skated since I was a little kid,” he replies. “I’m not, like, extra special at it or anything, as I can really only skate forward, but I do have experience.”

“I thought we were both going to be failing together; my God,” Dan says as he anxiously steps onto the ice. The sudden change of flooring underneath him shocks him so much, so he grabs onto the wall to help keep him up. “I’m going to be fucking terrible, and then you’ll be over there floating away like a queen of ice.”

“Of course,” Phil replies, laughing. He gestures with his head. “C’mon; let’s make the most of the sixteen pounds we’ve spent and do some laps. Get that exercise in.”

“Ugh. This is just like gym class.”

Dan was rough at first, not necessarily understanding how to keep his balance correctly. He held onto the wall the entire ride around the first time, but eventually he got brave enough to let go and skate a small distance away from the wall.

“I’m just praying someone with a disease didn’t wear these ice-skates before me,” Dan says, shakily shifting from one foot to the other, just as Phil was doing in order to keep them moving faster. They were now the only ones on the rink, and the periods they had intended to only skip had definitely passed, but Phil wasn’t really feeling anxious about it; for some reason, he felt okay about skipping for once. Like everyone needs to skip at one point in their lives.

Maybe this whole thing was being a bad influence on him.

Whatever.

(Yeah, this might be a bad influence).

“They clean them, you know,” Phil reminds him.

“Yes, but still,” Dan replies. “I don’t want to have to explain to my mum that I got sick from ice-skating at the shopping center because some peasant didn’t restrain from ice-skating when they were sick.”

“I mean, just say someone at school sneezed on you.”

Dan snickers and shakes his head. “Wow. Such a bad influence, trying to tell me to lie to my mother. How rude.”

“You lied to her when we went to the play.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Specifics.”

Phil snickers and shakes his head. “This was quite fun, though. Beats sitting in class all afternoon, doesn’t it?”

“I mean, it would be kind of a fail of an afternoon if this didn’t beat that,” Dan replies, smiling. “But, yeah, this was quite fun. I’m not in the mood to return to school, though. What time even is it?”

Phil pulls out his phone from his pocket and fishes out his phone. He chuckles when he sees the time when he turns his it on. “It’s one,” he says. “We’ve missed two periods.”

“Then there’s really no point in going back, is there?” Dan replies, shrugging his shoulders. “We should go get some food, though. I am fucking _starving_.”

“What’re you in the mood for?” Phil asks as he swerves over to the exit of the rink.

“Shakeaway?” Dan suggests, as though he is scared to share his idea.

Phil snickers. “That’s not much of a lunch, is it?” he asks. Before Dan can even say anything, he smiles at him. “Let’s head on our way there, then, shall we?”

Dan smiles and holds onto Phil’s shoulder as he pulls himself out of the rink as well. “Where have you been all my life?”


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because a lot of us are/were anticipating or are/were anxious about ticket sales, I'm posting two chapters today to help distract some peeps who might be letting the tickets get to them. So, in just a few minutes, I'll post chapter sixteen as well! :)

“Come on, Phil! We’ve missed having you hang out with us!” Louise tells Phil as they’re in the hallway of school, walking together to English class, which is on the opposite side of the school than where they are.

It’s been a few weeks since Dan and Phil last had their second outing of “Dan becoming a normal teen”; they had a butt-load of tests and projects due for a long amount of time after they cut class that one day, so they’ve just been focusing on tutoring lately.

And, unfortunately, with all that time spent studying with Dan and all his free-time being taken up by Phil doing his own homework, he has been neglecting hanging out with his friends yet again.

He thought that they would understand, considering at least for these past few weeks that they were meeting up solely (well, not _solely,_ considering they do talk to each other about things besides homework) for studying, but Phil guesses that perhaps his friends are still under the assumption that Phil is still doing this only for the project in English class. In that case, they would be incorrect…obviously, considering that he and Dan are friends.

But, of course, the fact that this is for an assignment as well is still the only thing on his friends’ minds.

And he gets it; he originally did this for the project, but now all of a sudden, he’s spending literally all his time helping out Dan. That’s got to make his friends feel pretty bad, and Phil does realize that. He should be taking more time to be with them aside from only at lunch time or in any of the classes that they have together.

He really has been leaving behind his friends. But at the same time, he’s doing it for a good reason.

In case you couldn’t tell, he’s conflicted about the whole situation.

It’s the fourth of November, and Louise is trying to convince Phil to come to the annual grade Bonfire Night get-together over at one of the popular kids’ houses. The entire year twelve grade is invited, and they’ve been doing this probably since they were all in year six or year seven, where they get together at someone’s house and celebrate Bonfire Night.

Phil has only gone once, where he set his pants on fire accidentally, and he has refused to go back since for fear of re-living his embarrassing mistakes as a young child.

He now normally celebrates it back at home with his parents, his brother, and Cornelia, where they sit in their backyard on their deck and watch the fireworks from there. They’ll have hot coco and some other treats, and they’ll just watch the festivities from there.

And Phil likes celebrating it that way. His family is great company.

And he doesn’t talk to that many people outside of his friend group, so he would just be standing around awkwardly if he decided to go to the class bonfire. He’d just sit by the food and watch the fireworks for a few minutes before deciding to walk back home, where he’d lock himself in his bedroom and play online _Mario Kart_ until he falls asleep.

That actually sounds quite sad, now that Phil is thinking about it.

Whatever; he’s mostly anti-social. That’s fine. He’s allowed to be.

Well…that doesn’t really make sense, but whatever.

“I miss hanging out with you guys, too, but I’m not really sure I want to go to the Bonfire Night,” Phil replies, adjusting the straps on his backpack. “It’s not really my thing.”

“But we’re all going!” Louise exclaims, meaning their entire friend group has been planning to go. She’s telling Phil that in case he didn’t hear all their constant conversations about that during the week at the lunch table. “It would be a completely rubbish time without you.”

“What? I’m the life of the party?” Phil asks cheekily with a joking smile on his face. “I thought that was Caspar.”

“He likes to think he is. But you’re always there to crack a few good puns to brighten up the evening.”

“I think the fireworks do enough of that.”

“And you also bring the dad jokes,” Louise adds, nodding her head. She then goes back to the original topic and grabs his arm. “Seriously, Phil; we’d love to have you there.”

Phil sighs and looks off to the side, seeing all the posters and things hanging on the lockers lining the perimeter of the corridor, like ones for club meetings or for the winter formal, asking for people to help with the committee. “But Dan might want to study that night.”

“But you two only study for an hour. Plus, you two have been meeting up for so long; you deserve a break. Tutoring can’t take over your life.”

“It hasn’t.”

Louise deadpans.

“What? It hasn’t!” Phil exclaims defensively.

Louise huffs and brushes her hair off her shoulder. “If you’re so worried, why don’t you bring Dan along? You two can study and then come afterwards or something. We just want you to be there, Phil; you need to get out and have some fun. Meet some cute boys. Ever since Ch-”

“Louise, I really don’t feel the need to-“

“Then just to have fun. Please. If you really want to, bring Dan along, too. I’m sure he would want to have some fun as well. Plus, we can finally meet him, since you’ve been keeping him from us for so long.”

Phil looks off to the side again, not exactly wanting to look Louise in the eyes. He bites his bottom lip. He really hasn’t introduced Dan to his friends yet, has he? Dan’s been this kind of ambiguous character in Phil’s life to them, so surely this could be a good time to introduce them.

And, this could be another thing for them to do together to start getting Dan back into being a “normal teenager”. Going to a grade Bonfire Night celebration is not necessarily a rite of passage, but it is kind of like something that everyone should go to at least once.

And he’s sure Dan has celebrated Bonfire Night before, but this will be his first time with this grade, and with Phil. So surely this would be a good experience for him?

“I’ll think about it,” Phil replies as they reach Mr. Simpson’s classroom.

Louise squeals, as if taking it as a “yes”, and pats his shoulders affectionately before entering the classroom, Phil following behind her.

\----------------------------------------

It didn’t take a lot of convincing to get Dan to go.

Dan instantly smiled and nodded his head when Phil brought up the idea when they were tutoring on the fifth of November that after they were done, they go get coffee somewhere and then head over to where the Bonfire Night was being held.

“Yeah, I’d love to go,” Dan told him. “I’m always down for some Bonfire Night parties. I’m such a party animal type, you know?”

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”

“I am, but I’d like to go still. I mean, fireworks and free food. What can go wrong?”

So, they did their normal tutoring thing, going over homework and studying for exams. Once they were done, Dan called his mum to tell her that he and Phil were going to be working together on a major project due the following Monday (she didn’t sound happy from what Phil could vaguely hear from Dan’s end of the phone call; something about Dan needing to take his medication on time since he hadn’t been doing too great at that or something of the sorts), but Dan managed to convince her to let it happen.

So, they went back to Phil’s place to change out of their uniforms. Phil had to wash the outfit Dan was going to wear, as they had to make sure there wasn’t a lot of bacteria on them in case it could get Dan sick. Then, after, they walked to a nearby Starbucks to give themselves some caffeine to help keep them awake, and after sitting in there and talking for a bit, they headed on their way to the house where the event was being held.

Cars were lined up the entire street, and people were scattered all around the front yard, as well as in the backyard from what Dan and Phil could both see. There were so many people, and evening hadn’t even fully hit yet.

“Wow, much people, very firework, so celebration,” Dan says as he and Phil stand on the pavement outside of the house, Phil sending a quick text to Louise to let her know that he and Dan are here.

Phil chuckles. “Social interaction; my favorite,” he says. “I haven’t been to one of these in a few years, though.”

“I used to go to some of these back in Wokingham, but there were never as many people as there are here,” Dan replies. “And I’d usually just sit off by myself and eat all the food available.”

Phil chuckles. “You speak my language,” he replies, putting his phone back into his pocket. “Well, why don’t we go explore the food options? Maybe greet a few people to let them know we’re alive?”

Dan shrugs his shoulders and puts his hands into his pockets, motioning for Phil to lead the way. Phil leads them up the staircase leading to the front patio, though, instead of entering through the house, they walk around the side of it to the opened gate. The smell of smoke from the two bonfires going off in the backyard hits them like a brick wall, and Dan has to pause before they fully walk into the backyard to cough and get used to the smell.

“You okay?” Phil asks, patting Dan’s back to help him with his coughing.

“Just not used to the smell,” Dan says, his voice weaker. He clears his throat and coughs once more, hitting his chest with his hand. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Food would be nice now, though. Coughing wears me out.”

So, they headed over to the table on the back patio and each got themselves a small plate with food for them to eat while they walked around.

Phil found his group of friends all gathered at one corner of the backyard soon after he and Dan finished their plates of food. So, he lead Dan over to them so they could finally meet him.

Louise, of course, had to completely embarrass Phil and say, “oh, so you’re the mysterious Dan that Phil has been talking with for a while, aren’t you”, which caused Phil to blush heavily and Dan to chuckle nervously.

“I mean, I guess,” Dan replies nervously.

“I’m Louise,” she says with a smile, holding out her hand for Dan to shake.

Dan waves his hand instead of taking Louise’s hand. “Dan,” he replies. “Though you knew that. And sorry; I should probably stay away from shaking hands, since I get sick pretty easily.” Phil made sure to completely smother his hands in hand sanitizer before heading to the party. He knows his friends probably didn’t do that.

“Got it,” Louise replies, nodding her head once.

All Phil’s other friends introduced themselves, and they all talked for a bit, just mostly small talk and not really the kinds of conversations that Phil has with him. But it was their first time meeting, they all didn’t know each other well, but Phil figured that surely over time if they continued to get together, they would start talking about other things and have some better conversations with time.

After that, it was dark out, and the fireworks had started. So, grabbing more food (“We haven’t had dinner, so this is fine; no one should judge this”), they found themselves sitting on a blank space of fence to watch the fireworks, luckily having found a spot with a clear view of the sky with not many trees blocking the view.

They sit close together, their legs almost touching. Their shoulders were right next to each other’s, and their hands were folded neatly in their laps. They watched as the lights flashed up above their eyes, the colors reflecting down on them, watching the beautiful fireworks going off in the distant neighborhoods.

Phil looks around at everything around them, seeing all the people around the fire pits looking up into the sky, taking view of the wonderful colors and spectacles above them. Couples had their arms around each other, friends were all huddled together near sources of warmth, and basically all conversation had been abandoned.

Near one of the firepits, the one his friend group had migrated towards, he spots Charlie. Charlie is staring up at the sky at the fireworks. He’s not doing anything – just looking up at the sky. Just…nothing. A weird feeling settles in his chest.

Phil quickly turns away, not looking at him anymore. He, instead, glances over at Dan, who is grinning widely up at the fireworks, and a feeling of warmth masks the weirdness in Phil’s chest when he sees Dan’s childlike excitement. He smiles to himself and turns his attention back to the sky afterwards.

“It’s really beautiful,” Phil says right after a blue firework goes off above their heads, high in the sky above the trees.

Dan nods his head. “It really is,” he replies. “Reminds me of _Final Fantasy VII_.”

Phil smiles, knowing exactly what scene Dan was referring to.

He also nods his head, agreeing with him. “It’s nice.”

Dan chuckles and smiles over at Phil, though he doesn’t say anything else. He just turns his head and looks back up at the sky, letting out a sigh of relief.

He doesn’t know why he feels relief.

He just does.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

“Philip, I’m dying,” is the first thing Dan tells Phil when Phil comes into his bedroom one afternoon after school.

It’s the Monday after Bonfire Night, and Dan hadn’t gone to school because he had gotten ill, most likely from going to the party where germs were just basically everywhere. Dan thinks it was probably from just being around so many people who could’ve gotten him sick, plus mixed with him not taking medication always at the correct times. His mum only knew about the latter, and she forced him to stay home that day because of it.

So, of course, Phil got Dan’s homework from the Student Success Center and brought them over to the Howell house after school so he and Dan could get started on completing it.

Phil laughs when he sees Dan, who is laid snugly in his bed, in his pyjamas, and his curly bedhead hair. His nose is bright red, as are the whites of his eyes (though, of course, not as intensely), and he basically just looks dead.

“Poor you,” Phil says as he drops his backpack at the foot of Dan’s bed and hops on the mattress.

“And I have chemo tomorrow, which is going to fucking _suck balls_ ,” Dan complains, laying his head back on his pillow. “Ugh, I’m going to die.”

“What time is your chemo?” Phil questions.

“Like, ten in the morning or something like that,” Dan answers. “I’ll probably be fine to meet up tomorrow if you still want to, I mean. I can give you my hospital room and shit if I’m still there. I might be better to go home after it. I would let you know.”

“If you would be up to it.”

“I mean, it beats just lying in bed. Though, you know, we could probably just get distracted and then not study, but that’s even better than tutoring. Sorry.”

Phil shakes his head. “I take no offence; I agree whole-heartedly. But, we should probably get started, as much as you would hate it. But we have to keep making sure you’re keeping up with your studies.”

Dan rolls his eyes and sits up more in his bed. “You sound like my mum.”

“Your mum is a lovely person.”

Dan snickers. “You don’t live with her.”

Phil smiles. “Does she seriously not have any clue about those times when we weren’t tutoring?” he asks quietly, just in case Mrs. Howell is lurking around the second floor of the house and would be able to hear their conversation.

She is a helicopter mom, after all. It’s just who she is. Phil does think she is a nice person, even though Dan definitely sometimes has a different opinion. Like Dan mentioned: Phil isn’t constantly around her, so he has a different view of her.

And, even though he and Dan have been studying together and been becoming friends since September, Phil still has yet to meet Dan’s dad and brother. The two are always gone whenever Phil comes over, as Adrian is probably at Dan’s grandma’s house and his dad is still at work, so the timing is just never right.

So Phil has no idea how they are compared to Dan’s mum. From what he remembers from previous conversations, Dan’s dad is just very distant, and Dan and his brother don’t talk all that often unless it’s about music or other shared interests.

It’s almost the complete opposite of how Phil’s family works. For Phil, he’s close with both of his parents, and even though they sometimes can be pretty overbearing, they know when to keep their distance and give Phil independence while also being loving and supportive in everything he does.

He thinks back to when he came out to his parents last year, nearly right before he and Charlie started dating. While he can’t exactly put a name to what his orientation is, though he thinks bisexual might be the best-fitting word if he does decide to label himself (which he doesn’t necessarily feel a need to), he had known for a while, probably since somewhere in primary school, but he had never been able to tell his parents.

And he’d been crushing on Charlie for quite some time, and it definitely seemed like Charlie was feeling the same about him, so it only felt right that Phil would take the opportunity to come out to his parents before he suddenly got a boyfriend, which he definitely felt like was going to happen with Charlie.

And they were really supportive of him. They appreciated that he wanted to tell them, and they told him that no matter what, they were going to love and support him in everything he does in his life. This was nothing that was weird or anything that was going to change how they felt about him; this was just added information on who Phil is as a person. He can’t change it about himself; he has to embrace it. And his parents definitely embraced it as well, supporting him with open arms and loving smiles.

And, of course, Phil is extremely close with his brother, Martyn. Phil would consider his brother one of his closest friends, even though they might not see each other as much anymore due to busy schedules and other commitments. Even though they live in the same house, they’re both always off doing their own things, but they do still take the time to talk and connect, and they just get along extremely well.

Phil’s family is just tight-knit. They’re that stereotypical happy family where they’re tremendously close and do everything together.

Dan’s family is different. And for some people that might be okay, where they just don’t want or feel the need to be around their family all the time, and that’s okay.

But Dan seems to be a little apprehensive about the whole situation.

He thinks back to the conversation he and Dan had about his grandma. He used to visit her constantly, probably being over there even more than Adrian is. But he used to spend all his time there because he connected well with his grandma and actually felt like he could talk to her about anything.

That’s the kind of relationship Phil has with his entire family. Dan only feels that way about his grandma.

Because with his parents, he feels disconnected. He feels like he can’t talk to them about things. He feels like he can’t open up to them or tell them how he feels.

Phil obviously doesn’t know everything about the situation, and he doesn’t want to know until Dan tells him. Dan clearly doesn’t feel connected with his parents. Phil knows Dan loves them, he can tell, but he can also see that Dan clearly wishes that they changed the way they act around him sometimes, as if they have to make sure he’s safe literally at all times.

And it’s because of the cancer, Phil supposes. Perhaps they started acting more intensely when Dan was diagnosed. Because even before he was diagnosed, Dan told him, that he would still go over to his grandmother’s house all the time.

So maybe they were distant before, but now they’re just being too over-bearing, watching over his shoulders and constantly checking up on him. Constantly keeping him in this little bubble they’ve created, to where Dan can’t get out of bed and explore this new place he’s in.

The fact that Dan still, even after being here since the summer, doesn’t know where a majority of the things in Manchester are or even what exactly is _in_ Manchester by now is surprising to Phil. But it’s all because Dan doesn’t get the chance to explore.

All he knows his home, school, and the hospital.

So it does make Phil feel good, even though sometimes he’s not exactly doing what he would normally do, to do this for Dan, to help him experience life a bit more. Because it’s been a few months since his diagnosis, which means a few months since he’s last felt like a normal person.

Hopefully Phil is helping out with this.

Dan shakes his head. “If she has, she hasn’t mentioned anything to me. Which means she hasn’t. She would come up, screaming at me if she did find out,” he answers. He smiles. “Looks like we’re doing well.”

Phil smiles and chuckles. “Do you have any ideas for your next one?” he asks.

“Says the guy who literally said two seconds ago that we need to start studying,” Dan says jokingly, sticking his tongue out at Phil.

“We will.”

Dan snickers. “We said that last time, and then we ended up talking about Pokémon for a solid half hour.”

“You were the one that wanted to show me your collection from _Pokémon Moon_!”

“You were the one who allowed me to rant for that long about it!”

“Answer the first question I asked and then we can get to studying, then!”

Dan laughs and lays back on his bed, his eyes closed and his hands resting on his chest as he laughs loudly. Phil chuckles along with him. They laugh and laugh for a solid thirty seconds before Dan has to pause to have a coughing break, in which his mother came into the room and forced him to drink half a water bottle because apparently that would help with his coughing.

After she left, they settled down.

“Wait, okay, I’ve completely forgotten what you asked me originally,” Dan says with a smile. “Care to enlighten me once again?”

Now Phil sticks his tongue out at Dan. “I asked if you had any more ideas for things you want to do,” he says.

“Hmm…” Dan hums. He taps his chin with his pointer finger. “I had, like, a few ideas floating around in my head during the day, but I wasn’t sure if I actually _wanted_ to do them, you know? They were just thoughts.”

“What were they?” Phil questions.

Dan shakes his head. “It’s all about spontaneity, mi amigo. It’s all about spontaneity.”

“But what if I need to get something?”

“I’ll let you know, like, an hour before we do it or something. Maybe not tell you exactly what we’re doing, but you know.” He shrugs.

“You’re trying to torture me, Howell,” Phil replies, shaking his head at him as he reaches down to his backpack, pulling out Dan’s homework folder that he picked up from the Student Success Center.

“Not trying; I feel like I already am,” Dan says jokingly, laughing.

However, instead of joking along, Phil merely smiles at him and shakes his head. “Well, you aren’t.”

They sit in silence for a good ten seconds, though it feels like ten minutes. They just look at each other and smile. Phil isn’t entirely sure why, but it’s just what they do. They smile and their eyes just scan over each other’s faces in comfortable silence…well, until Dan needs to cough.

Phil chuckles. “So, how about we finally get started, huh?”

“I can’t, Philip; I’m dying.”

“Well, at least when we look back at you after you’ve died, we can say you completed all your homework and you had nothing left behind to complete or turn in.”

“Now it’s _you_ who’s torturing _me_.”

Phil smiles smugly. “It happens.”


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this chapter is mostly consisted of depictions of someone getting sick, so if you do not like that, please skip to the end of this chapter, where I put a note explaining what happened without all the details!

Dan texted Phil that next morning at around nine, telling him that his chemo was going to be at noon, and if he wanted to stop by the hospital to give him his homework and study if he was feeling up to it, that he could. He included his hospital room number and told him that if he wasn’t feeling well, he would let Phil know if they should put off the studying.

He never got any message throughout the day from Dan that told him he wasn’t feeling well, so Phil took it as a cue that Dan would be able enough to study with him after school.

So, as Phil always does when Dan isn’t at school: he goes to the Student Success Center at the end of the school day and picks up the homework that their teachers dropped off for Dan. He walks home, gets into his normal clothes, drowns his body in hand sanitizer, and then takes his bike over to the hospital.

Knowing he would definitely get lost, he consulted the receptionist in the waiting room of the ward Dan was in, asking her how to get there. Once he got the directions, he headed on his way up to Dan’s room.

When he got there, he anticipated some kind of sarcastic or whiny comment from Dan, something either like “you’re ten seconds late” or “Phil, I’m literally dying; I mean that as in a whole group of my cells in my body aren’t working properly”, usually just depending on Dan’s mood.

But instead of that, the second Phil knocks on the open door leading into Dan’s room, he receives silence as a greeting.

He furrows his eyebrows, thinking he’s walked into the wrong room. “Dan?” he calls, pushing open the door even more. He steps in, seeing the bed empty, though it looked like someone had just been lying in it. Phil sees Dan’s phone and laptop resting on the middle of the bed, his laptop open, though the screen was turned off.

He hears a cough coming from the bathroom. “Dan?” Phil calls again, not wanting to step into the bathroom for fear of invading Dan’s privacy.

“Phil?” a weak voice replies.

“Are you okay?” Phil asks, stepping closer to the bathroom. He sets his backpack down on the floor and stands near the door.

Dan coughs harshly a few more times. “Oh, shit,” he mumbles. “I forgot to…” he coughs a few more times, and after, Phil hears something hit the toilet bowl.

“Are you throwing up?” Phil asks. He hears Dan gasp for air before the sound of him retching happens again. “Do you need me to call a nurse or a doctor?”

“Don’t,” Dan replies, his voice somehow even weaker than it was before. “Emergency.”

Phil furrows his eyebrows. “What?”

“There’s an emergency,” Dan replies. “In another…” he coughs a few times, “…in another thing. Place. Whatever. Tried calling earlier and it didn’t…” He coughs again and again, but it doesn’t sound like he throws anything up.

“Do you need water?” Phil asks. “Can you get yourself water from the sink?”

Dan doesn’t respond; he just breaths heavily from what Phil can hear. Phil looks over at Dan’s bed and sees a bottle of water sitting on the nightstand. Most of it had already been drank, but some was still in the bottle. He grabs it and walks over to the bathroom, opening the door.

The lights were off, and Dan was kneeling in front of the toilet, dressed in his hospital gown, and sweating and breathing heavily into the toilet bowl. Phil tries not to look at the contents inside it; then there would be two people getting sick.

Blindly reaching over, Phil flushes the toilet for Dan. Dan doesn’t even look up at him; he keeps his head still in a position where, if he needed to throw up again, he could without moving too much, as he must be in a lot of pain, and moving around would only make him feel worse.

Phil goes to the tap and washes his hands diligently and carefully so he could touch Dan if need be and without fear of getting him sick later on.

“Wanna swish some water around in your mouth?” Phil asks, handing him the water bottle.

Dan takes it, sips a small amount of the water, swishes it around in his mouth, and then spits it out into the toilet.

“You still going to be sick?”

Dan shrugs his shoulders. “Sorry,” he whispers, closing his eyes.

“Don’t be sorry,” Phil replies. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“No; I should’ve…I should’ve told you.”

“Told me what?” Phil asks, kneeling down next to him.

Dan coughs once, but nothing happens after. He clears his throat before he continues speaking. “Chemo…it got pushed back…I get really sick after it…but normally not this bad.” He coughs a few more times into his elbow.

“Don’t speak too much; your throat will feel worse,” Phil comments. “And it’s all good. Don’t worry about it. I’m here for you. You know that.”

Dan closes his eyes even tighter. He coughs harshly a few times before he ducks his head into the bowl, dry heaving into the toilet. Phil reaches over and runs his hand up and down Dan’s back, hoping it’ll make him feel better. He sits there, patiently waiting for Dan to finish.

Once he has, Dan takes the water bottle again, sips some, and spits it back out into the toilet. Phil reaches over behind Dan and flushes the toilet again so Dan wouldn’t have to stare at it.

“Didn’t know I had that much shit to throw up,” Dan jokes quietly, shaking his head.

“Well, you’re not throwing up shit, first of all,” Phil teasingly corrects, thinking that playful banter will make him feel better.

Dan groans. “If I had energy, I’d…” he coughs, “…punch you.”

“Guess I get off easy with my dad jokes today,” Phil says, smiling. He continues to keep his hand on Dan’s back, rubbing it gently to hopefully make Dan feel a little better. “How long have you been getting sick?”

“An hour, maybe,” Dan answers, closing his eyes again. “It was fine the first, like, half-hour, where I could just sit and pray that I didn’t actually throw up, but it started getting really bad after that.” He clears his throat. “Normally I only throw up once or twice.”

Phil frowns.

“They gave me a new kind of chemo drug today, though,” Dan explains. He scoots back away from the toilet, as if wanting to make himself feel closer to Phil’s hand. “Other one wasn’t working too great. S’why I got sick all the time. Now this one just makes me feel like fuckin’ shit.” He sits in silence for a few moments, and then he wraps his arms around his stomach.

“Do you want me to try and get a nurse now?” Phil asks.

Dan shakes his head. “I don’t think they would do anything. Just give me more drugs.” He leans his head down, barely above the toilet bowl. “God, I’m…I’m so fuckin’ uncomfortable.”

Phil clears his throat awkwardly, feeling his heart race fast. “Um…do you…do you want to lay your head on my…on my shoulder?” he asks, feeling almost scared to offer that.

But Dan, without even hesitating, nods his head. “Need help,” he requests. “Can’t…can’t really move myself.”

Phil nods his head as well. Clearing his throat awkwardly again, he reaches over and holds Dan by his sides and gently pushes him away from the toilet and back towards him. Phil sits down fully on the tiled floor of the bathroom and brings Dan back to him, helping him so his head is resting on Phil’s left shoulder. Phil keeps an arm around him, and Dan’s arms remain enveloping his stomach, adding pressure so hopefully he doesn’t throw up again.

Phil feels his heart racing rapidly when Dan’s head rests on his shoulder. He hopes he isn’t breathing too heavily or that his limbs aren’t shaking too much to where Dan feels uncomfortable.

He doesn’t know why he feels like this; it just came over him. He can’t explain it. He just feels…nervous for no reason. He shouldn’t feel nervous.

Dan apparently feels the exact opposite.

“Thanks,” Dan whispers, closing his eyes, allowing his cheek to press up comfortably on Phil’s collarbone.

“Y-yeah,” Phil replies. Without even thinking about it, he begins to rub Dan’s side gently, up and down, slowly, making sure not to go too fast for fear of it bothering Dan or somehow making him get sick again.

Dan lets out a long sigh. “I won’t get sick on you…I hope.”

“If you do, turn your head away from me, please,” Phil replies jokingly. “Do it on the floor.”

“If I wasn’t having an immense feeling of nausea right now, I would laugh.”

“Glad to know that,” Phil says.

Dan scoots his head closer to Phil’s neck, and he breathes in heavily. “Another excuse to not study tonight,” he points out. “Me being fucking ill all the time.”

“What, so this beats studying?” Phil questions, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

Dan nods his head. “You’re here to keep me company.”

Phil tries to ignore the feeling of his heart skipping a beat. “Um…well…um…I’m there with you when we’re studying, though.”

“True,” Dan says. “But we would be talking about the ruling elite in Rome trying to become kings.”

“You read ahead!” Phil exclaims, trying to change the subject.

“I knew I had chemo, you dumbass,” Dan replies. He lets out a sigh. “I like studying with you. But sometimes I…don’t.” He clears his throat. “Sick brain. Sorry.”

Phil shakes his head. “I understand what you mean.”

Dan gulps and presses his cheek more into Phil’s shoulder. “So…no studying tonight?”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Phil replies. He looks out the bathroom door for a few moments, seeing parts of the vacant hospital room. “Is your mum here?” he asks.

Dan shakes his head. “Work,” he replies. “She dropped me off here for chemo. Then left. Dad might be coming over later, but probably not. I’m probably going to be staying overnight.” He shrugs. “It happens.”

Phil frowns. “Well…I can stay here until your dad comes over if you want me to.”

“Couldn’t possibly make you stay over that long. He gets off at seven.”

“Maybe for an hour or two, then,” Phil replies. “Until you’re feeling better.”

“You’re too nice.”

“A saint,” Phil says, feeling suddenly braver as he moves Dan closer to him, allowing his side to press against Phil’s chest.

“Don’t get too cocky.”

Phil chuckles, but he doesn’t say anything more. He just sits there, holding Dan close to him, and feeling the nerves subside in his chest.

He doesn’t know how long they just sit there, comfortable in the silence, but by the time Phil’s legs have fallen asleep, he looks down and notices that Dan has fallen asleep, right there, against his chest.

Phil smiles to himself. He awkwardly picks Dan up in his arms, bridal style, noticing just how light Dan is, despite being as tall as Phil. But Dan doesn’t even move an inch as Phil holds him as he stands up. He brings Dan out of the bathroom and out into the hospital room, where he walks over to the bed and sets Dan down on it.

Phil moves his laptop and phone onto the floor, and he brings the blanket up to Dan’s chest.

He pulls up a seat from against the wall and pulls it up next to the bed, sitting down on it, and pulling out his phone to play on it while Dan snoozes, not able to wipe the smile off his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOR THOSE WHO SKIPPED THE CHAPTER: Dan got sick because of the new chemo treatment he was given, and Phil found him in the bathroom in his hospital room when he came to drop off his homework, so Phil stayed with him, and they ended up kind-of cuddling in the bathroom to help Dan feel better.
> 
> Anyway, I managed to get front-row seats for the Rosemont show for Interactive Introverts! If you're coming to the Rosemont show, hmu so we can start a group chat with other people who are planning on going to that show!


	18. Chapter Eighteen

“You wanna _what_?” Martyn asks Phil.

It’s a week after Dan’s chemo incident. Dan stayed home the day after it, as he had felt so ill and gross from the previous day, but he was back to normal the next day, returning back to school with his normal Dan-like attitude. They were going to switch his chemo treatment again, meaning he was going to still remain in his first cycle, but hopefully to one a bit more bearable for Dan.

The chemo also unfortunately caused Dan’s hair to thin out even more than it already had. When he and Phil met, Dan’s hair was still full and curly, but it definitely looked thin, like if you were to run your hands through it, a few strands might fall out.

But now, it was even worse; even with that one chemo treatment, Dan’s hair began to thin out even more, if that was even possible, and now, large chunks of his hair would just fall out, sometimes without Dan even running a hand through it.

Dan has now resorted to wearing hats to cover up some bald spots that were starting to appear at the back of his head. He got some weird looks the first day he did it, as it is against school policy to wear hats during school hours (but he didn’t get caught by teachers, as he had been given special permission to wear hats by the school), but Dan didn’t seem to care. Or, at least, he was trying present himself that way.

But he didn’t seem bothered. Not one bit; everything just seemed to be going fine and dandy, like nothing was wrong in the world. He was back to his normal Dan self, and only two days after the chemo incident, Dan already had an idea for what he and Phil would do next.

And for that, Phil needs the help of his older brother, Martyn.

“I need your car. Just for a night,” Phil tells him. Their parents are getting ready to go out for a dinner with people from Nigel’s work, so Martyn and Phil are going to be home alone, so they’ve started looking through the cabinets in their kitchen for anything to have for dinner that doesn’t require strenuous amounts of effort.

“How long is a night?” Martyn asks, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Like, only a few hours,” Phil replies. “And we’ll only take it out to the country roads.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

Phil bites his bottom lip. “A friend.”

“Who? Louise? I thought she had her license and a car now.”

Phil shakes his head. “Dan,” he answers.

“That kid you’re tutoring?”

Phil nods.

“Why do you need the car? You don’t have your license yet, little brother.”

Phil huffs. “I know I don’t. But Mum and Dad aren’t going to be here, and Dan wanted to watch the stars, since tonight is supposed to be a good night for constellations.”

_“Do you have a car?” Dan had asked him when he told Phil that he had figured something out for them to do next. They were studying in the library, and, as always, they were back in their secret cubby the day Dan returned to school. He was a lot cheerful, despite how ill he had been two days prior and because of his hair situation (he explained it to Phil, who had given his beanie a curious look, not necessarily asking for an explanation, when Dan entered the library around half an hour ago)._

_Phil shook his head. “Nope,” he replied. “I won’t get my license until probably February. Unless I completely fail my exams. Do you have your license?”_

_Dan shook his head as well. “I’m the baby of the class. I won’t get it until June.”_

_“When?”_

_“11 June,” Dan responded. “Yours?”_

_“30 January,” Phil replied. He cleared his throat as he closed his maths notebook in front of him. “So, why do you ask?”_

_Dan chuckled. “You’d laugh.”_

_“No, I wouldn’t.”_

_“But the last time I asked you not to laugh at me, you did!”_

_“We were playing_ Crash Bandicoot _and you completely failed trying to show me a ‘secret’,” Phil used air-quotes, “because you forgot how to do it.”_

_Dan nodded his head. “It was kind of funny.” He cleared his throat. “No, but you might think I’m being legitimately stupid.”_

_“No, I wouldn’t. Tell me.”_

_Dan rolled his eyes._

_“You clearly want to tell me.”_

_Dan furrowed his eyebrows at Phil. “And how on Earth can you prove that?”_

_“Because otherwise you wouldn’t have brought it up,” Phil responded smugly and as-a-matter-of-factly, chuckling slightly._

_Dan blinked a few times, sitting back. “Oh, right,” he replied awkwardly. He laughed. “I guess you’re right.”_

_Phil smiled proudly at him. “Now, why do you need a car?” he asked, patting Dan’s knee gently._

_Dan smiled, and Phil swore he saw almost a little hint of blush appear on his cheeks, but he didn’t mention anything about it. “Um…well, I had another idea for something for us to do.”_

_“And it involves a car.”_

_“Yes,” Dan answered. “I thought…well…at the end of the week, on Friday, it’s supposed to be a really good night to go out and see constellations, and…you know…I’d really like to go do that, since I used to do it all the time as a kid. But, instead of doing it in one of our backyards or something, I figured…we could drive out to one of the country areas and do it there instead. That way we’d, you know, get a better view.”_

_“We could just walk out to the country roads,” Phil replied. “They’re not that far from my house.”_

_“Well…” Dan replied, twirling his pencil in his fingers, tapping it on his chin as well, “…I wanted to take a car because…I’ve never driven before, and I think I’d like to try.”_

_Phil’s eyes widened when he heard that. Dan wanted to go out driving without a license with Phil, who also does not have license, and is probably one of the worst if not_ the _worst drivers on the face of the planet. They could easily get caught and there would be serious repercussions. Phil wasn’t too keen on that; while he has been loosening up and allowing himself to have a bit more fun with Dan and do things he wouldn’t normally do, he’s not exactly sure on this whole thing._

_“You’ve never driven before?” Phil asked._

_Dan shook his head. “I got sick before I could start my practice driving. Does your older brother have a car?”_

_“Y-yeah, bu-”_

_“We won’t get caught if that’s what you’re thinking,” Dan interrupted as if he had read Phil’s mind. “Because, I mean, no one’s going to be out in the country roads. And we won’t be driving that much. Just a little bit. We’ll be spending most of our time looking at the constellations. It’ll be fine.”_

_Phil hesitated to answer._

_“I’m totally fine if you don’t want to, by the way. It was just an idea I had. Don’t worry about it if you don’t want to. I completely understand.”_

_Phil paused. Dan did have a point; there would be a very low possibility of them getting caught. And, Phil easily had access to a car; Martyn had his own, and Phil could probably easily get it from him in order to take Dan out. It’d just be for a few hours, and, from what Phil can remember, that night, his parents will be out for some dinner. So it’s not like he would have to explain it to them, either._

_It’s like all signs were pointing towards him and Dan going._

_“I can ask my brother for his car...as long as you pay for the Shakeaway we’re getting beforehand.”_

“You can just walk there, little brother,” Martyn reminds Phil, closing one of the cupboards above the sink, which just had their mum’s stash of baking items. If Kathryn is ever stressed, she just goes into a baking frenzy, where all she’ll want to do to calm down is bake cookies and cakes. Obviously the rest of the family doesn’t mind it.

“I know,” Phil replies. He lets out a long sigh, slumping his shoulders and looking out the window in front of the sink. “But…it’ll be, like, practice for me driving.” He says this even though Dan would be the one driving.

Martyn raises his eyebrows.

“Like…we’ve all been so busy, and I haven’t gotten to practice driving for my exam yet. This could be practice. We’ll only be at the country roads. No one goes out there, and if we need help or something, like you said, it’s just a little walk there.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Mum and Dad don’t have to know.”

Instead of giving him some speech about doing the right thing or the fact that this is kind of illegal, Martyn merely laughs, his shoulders shaking. “Who are you and what have you done to my brother?”

“Shut up,” Phil replies, hitting Martyn’s shoulder as his brother reaches into his pocket and pulls out his keyring, tossing it into Phil’s hands, which he hastily opens when he sees Martyn throw the keys in his direction. He barely catches them. 

“Just don’t bust it up. Paid good money for that.” He laughs. “And you’ll owe me.”

Phil rolls his eyes. “Of course I will.”

\---------------------------------------

“Why are you already holding onto the handlebar? I haven’t even moved the car yet,” Dan says despite having a big smile on his face.

It’s later that night, after getting their Shakeaway. Phil’s parents had left for their dinner while Dan and Phil were out getting their drinks, so when they returned to Phil’s house, they were able to leave right away to the country roads with Martyn’s car.

Well, they haven’t left yet. They’re just sitting in the driveway, the car turned on, but still put in park. Dan is the one who is going to be driving them out there, since Phil didn’t trust himself to do it. So, of course the smart thing to do (please note the sarcasm) would be to have the one of them who literally has no driving experience take them out there.

But he would probably end up being a better driver than Phil is. Phil doesn’t even trust himself to get them to the country roads safely.

He’s still allowed to be nervous with Dan, though, even though he knows Dan is going to do a lot better than Phil has ever been at driving.

Dan just seems like the kind of person that would succeed at this. Phil wasn’t really sure why. It was just an intuition, he guesses.

“No reason,” Phil replies. He looks out over the over-head mirror, followed by glancing behind them through the back window.

“You seem anxious.”

“Nope; perfectly fine,” Phil replies, gripping the handlebar even more. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Okay, Mr. Pussycat,” Dan says, shifting the gear so it’s in reverse. Before he releases the brake, Phil looks over to him.

“Promise you won’t kill me?”

Dan rolls his eyes and glances behind them, out the back window before easing off the brake. “For fuck’s sake…I’m not a bad driver.”

“You’ve never driven before.”

“But I’m not going to be bad,” Dan reassures, turning the wheel slightly to turn the car out of the parking spot and onto the road, the front facing the direction in which they would be going to head out to the open country roads, just a little bit away from Phil’s neighborhood.

“Are you basing your driving skills off all the times you’ve beaten me at _Mario Kart_?”

“Aw, you finally admit that I beat you!” Dan exclaims.

Phil laughs and shakes his head. “My goodness, just get your ass on the road before our shakes melt.”

“Mr. Pussycat has turned into Mr. Bossy.”

“Dan.”

\---------------------------------------

It went smoothly, in Phil’s opinion; sometimes Dan didn’t obey the speed limit (who really does anyway, in all actuality?), and sometimes he would get too caught up into banting with Phil that he would accidentally start to cross over into a lane next to him, but other than that, he did fine.

And, of course, they didn’t even really need to pay attention to rules when he started driving out in the country; Dan drove at a high speed through the gravel roads surrounded by open fields of crops and whatever else was out there.

They ended up parking somewhere off on the side of the road, the lights of the city they had left behind off in the distance, and the sky above them perfectly clear. They laid out a blanket that they had found in the trunk of the car, and they placed it on the hood, where they then laid down and rested on top of to look at the stars better.

They laid comfortably next to each other, their arms pressed up against each other’s, as well as their feet. For some reason, this made Phil’s heart race rapidly. But, he hopes that by laying here, it would help calm him down because he had no idea why he was suddenly getting so nervous.

They started it off in silence, just looking up, watching the sky, with every second passing, a new star appearing. It was honestly quite beautiful; there were different sizes and colors, but everywhere he looked, a new star would appear. He’d never really gone star-gazing before. He liked looking up at the stars on occasion, but he’s never really just laid out somewhere to look at the stars.

After a few minutes of silence, Dan just started talking about the constellations above them, pointing out the names of the ones he knew.

“I like space,” Dan told him after pointing out Orion’s Belt. “I don’t know a lot about it. But I like it. Even though it’s scary.”

“Scary?”

Dan nods his head. “It’s just an endless abyss of gas. That’s fucking terrifying, not being sure if you’re going to get back to where you started because you would just be floating mindlessly wherever it takes you. But there’s just something so fascinating about it.”

“Tune in next week for more ‘Going Deep with Dan and Phil’ where Dan talks about if aliens exist,” Phil jokes in a faux-announcer voice.

Dan snickers and hits Phil’s arm. “Shut up,” he says. “And for the record, yes, I think aliens exist.”

“Good, because if you didn’t, I was going to push you off this car.”

Dan laughs, the sound echoing throughout the field.

They resume sitting in silence, just continuing to stare up at the sky, more constellations making their presence known on the blanket of navy blue above them.

Dan is the one to speak up again after a few moments of silence. “When I was back home in Wokingham, I always wanted to do this. Like, go out with some friends or with my girlfriend and do this.”

Phil can’t explain it, but for some reason, hearing the word “girlfriend” hits him right in the chest like a brick wall. He doesn’t know why.

Dan shrugs his shoulders. “They all never wanted to,” he continues. “They all thought it was boring or stupid. And then I got sick.”

“Are you and your girlfriend still together?” Phil finds himself asking.

Luckily Dan doesn’t question why Phil suddenly took this conversation on a tangent. He shakes his head. “Nope,” he responds. “We broke up.”

“Because you moved here?”

“Before,” Dan answers. “We knew we were going to break up. I wasn’t really the best boyfriend in the world. And she wasn’t the best girlfriend in the world. She was bothered by some things, like me being bisexual or my heavy involvement in drama club or whatever. And when I got sick, I think it bothered her so much and shit, since I just became even more distant and shit after I got diagnosed, and I wasn’t there for her, so she cheated on me. Then we broke up. And then luckily we learned we were moving to Manchester, so we wouldn’t have to talk to each other or see each other. We haven’t spoken since we broke up. It happens.” He shrugs his shoulders again.

For whatever reason, the word “bisexual” echoes repeatedly, over and over, in Phil’s mind. He tries his hard to focus on what Dan is telling him, but that word just keeps going over and over in Phil’s head.

Dan clears his throat. “I would always tell her, though, that I wanted to go star-gazing or that I wanted to go watch the sunset or stupid, cheesy things like that. I always wanted that, for some reason or another, but she would tell me that it was dumb, because there wouldn’t be anything to do.”

Phil feels this pain in his chest. Who would ever dream of cheating on someone after they’ve found out something as big as, oh, Phil doesn’t know, the fact that Dan has cancer? That’s literally the worst thing to do to someone after something as big as that happens. Not even that, but she cheated on him. That’s so freaking wrong and makes Phil so angry.

Phil can honestly understand why they haven’t spoken to each other since that happened. It makes perfect sense. Phil doesn’t blame Dan.

“You deserve someone who will take you on stargazing dates,” he says quietly, but just loud enough for Dan to hear. However, Dan doesn’t respond. His eyes remain trained on the sky above them, his eyes glowing from the shine of the stars.

After what felt like a few minutes of silence, and not sure what else to say, Phil breaks the silence with, “My boyfriend broke up with me at the beginning of the summer so that he wasn’t tied down in a relationship.”

Dan turns his head to look at Phil the instant the word “boyfriend” escaped his lips.

“We had dated for a year,” Phil continues. “And…yeah, I always knew it wasn’t going to work out, and I always felt like he was just kind of…using me for whatever he wanted, I guess, and…you know, I knew he started to get interested in other guys and stuff, so…you know, I knew he didn’t want to stay, either. And I wasn’t really happy. But…I never had the nerve to be the one to break up with him, so…I waited for so long for him to be the one to do it.” He sighs and runs a hand through his fringe, pushing it up. “He never really took me on dates like this. I always wanted to.”

Dan smiles at him. “You deserve someone who will take you on stargazing dates, too.”

Phil looks back over at him as well, smiling, too.

And they remain there under the starlit sky for an undistinguishable amount of time, laid in the comforting silence with their arms pressed against each other’s and their hearts beating fast.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: this chapter has depictions of someone getting sick. If you would like to skip it:  
> (if you're on a laptop): ctrl+f and search or (if you're on mobile) scroll down to "It was a slow walk". You can start reading from there! I'll explain at the end of this chapter what happened so you don't feel like you're missing anything!

_How in the world did I end up back here again?_ Phil thinks to himself as he rubs Dan’s back gently, running his hand up and down the length of his spine as Dan throws up into the toilet in front of him, the loud music and conversations pounding in the background and in their ears, and two abandoned cups with beer in them set on the tiled floor beside them.

It is a scene that is so familiar to Phil yet also so foreign to Phil. Similar because of the situation Dan was in only a few weeks prior, but foreign because of the scenario in which this is happening.

Phil thinks back to how this started.

Just last week, it was decided that since they only had one month left of the semester and that since finals would be coming up quickly that there was going to be a house party to basically be a distraction from the fact that their grades were basically doomed.

Phil initially wasn’t going to go, as he’s usually pretty awkward at parties, never really sure what to do besides follow Louise, PJ, or any of his other friends that were there, sipping gingerly at some kind of alcohol that one of his friends would’ve gotten for him. Then he’d probably end up leaving early, going back home to crawl under his covers to watch YouTube or make some kind of video out of boredom.

He figured he just wasn’t going to go to this one; he wasn’t feeling up to it, and he would much rather just stay home and…well, _not go to the party_.

But Dan ended up sharing that fact that he has never been to a “high school party”, and when he had heard about this one, he thought that he and Phil could go together.

_“Isn’t it, like, a rite of passage to go to a party?” Dan had asked him._

_“I mean, I guess?” Phil responded, not even too sure of his answer. “But…I mean, it’s obviously not required. That’d be kind of…you know…stupid.”_

_Dan smiled at the awkwardness of his answer. “True,” he replied. “But I think we should go. We can tell my parents that we’re going to a study group or something.”_

Well, they ended up not even having to tell Dan’s parents, as they informed Phil only the day after that they were going to be visiting one of Dan’s aunts, who had just recently had a baby and was in need of assistance, so they were going to be gone for nearly a whole week.

_“We know you and Daniel will be meeting up a lot while we’re gone, so we’re going to trust you to remind Dan when to take his medicine, and if he gets sick, you’ll be the one to take him to the hospital,” Mrs. Howell had told him the next day when Phil had come home with Dan so they could study together. “He won’t have a chemo treatment this week, as they’re letting him rest after the last one, so you won’t have to worry about that, either.”_

_She pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to Phil. “Here is Dan’s medical information, just in case he needs to be brought to the hospital. It’s important that you have that in case something happens.”_

_Phil nodded his head and put the paper in his pocket._

_“And, we haven’t told you this, but…there is a possibility that because of his illness that he might have a seizure,” she said, her voice dropping to a low volume, probably in case Dan, who was upstairs getting changed into normal clothes, heard the conversation. “It hasn’t happened, but it is a possibility. If, for whatever reason he does, call 999, and if it goes longer than three minutes, just…just call again. Move objects that could get in the way, if he’s on the floor, put him on his side, and…yes, just be safe. Make sure he isn’t injured after it happens, and just…just stay with him.”_

_It was a lot to take in. He remembered learning about this stuff back in health class, and they did a little simulation of this, but Phil hadn’t remembered everything from it. But, despite not being too sure about this, he nodded his head._

So, not only did they not have to worry about Dan’s parents for an entire week, but Phil was basically going to be the one looking after Dan because Dan’s parents trusted him for the job somehow.

So, when Dan brought up the party, his first instinct was to say no. No, it wouldn’t be safe for Dan, as loads of people were probably going to be getting sick and that could obviously harm Dan, and he wasn’t sure if Dan was allowed to drink alcohol with his leukemia.

Well, even then, they’re underaged, so that _definitely_ means Dan’s not allowed.

But the way Dan was looking at him made it almost impossible for Phil to say no to him.

So, they ended up at the party at the end of the week on Friday, only two days before Dan’s parents were going to be coming back.

It was fine at first; they went around, just as they did with the bonfire, and said hi to their friends that had already been there for a while. Dan and Phil had gotten some food together before heading off to the party, not just because Phil was hungry, but because he wasn’t sure how much they were going to be drinking and how much food was going to be offered at the party. It was just to be on the safe side. Obviously Dan didn’t mind; anything involving food meant Dan was all for it.

They talked with their friends for a bit, just having causal conversation that really served no purpose. Louise and PJ were both completely surprised that Phil had actually come to the party, since during their discussions during the week, Phil hadn’t been sure about going. But, once they saw who he was with, the pieces were put together and it made sense to them…well, of course, they didn’t know about the whole “Dan is trying to be like  

After talking with them and a few of Phil’s other friends, Dan and Phil went to the kitchen to get even more food, and together, they sat on the staircase, constantly getting kicked and shoved by the people running up and down the stairs.

But, they didn’t want to stay in the living room, as people were dancing and making out in there, and Phil thought he saw Charlie in there (he didn’t mention that to Dan) and they didn’t want to go outside because people were smoking, and they didn’t want Dan to get into another coughing fit because of it, just like what happened at the Bonfire Night party.

They sat and talked and ate their food, chatting about random crap while trying to block out any of the noises going on around them. Dan constantly was eyeing the cups people were holding, all of them containing some kind of alcohol, but it took him about half-an-hour before he finally asked if they could get drinks, and, somehow, managed to convince Phil that a cup of beer each would be fine for them to loosen up a bit.

So, they went to the kitchen, and Dan picked out two bottles of beer for them, pouring them into the solo cups that were stacked haphazardly on the counters. Phil doesn’t like beer, and he didn’t know how to tell Dan that, but it turned out that Dan wasn’t a fan of it, either, but they both drank their cups anyway, both of them getting a slight buzz afterwards.

Then things started going downhill from there.

When Phil wasn’t looking, as he thought he saw someone from film club standing around, Dan went and grabbed another beer, even though he wasn’t a fan of the taste. He drank it, already becoming pretty drunk; the buzz had already been hitting him like a brick wall when he had his first drink, so one can imagine just how bad Dan was getting after two.

And when Phil got up to get Dan a drink of water to make sure he stayed hydrated, Dan got a third drink.

It got bad pretty quickly, as one can guess.

And soon enough, the now drunk Dan got fairly ill, his stomach starting to ache badly, and him now needing to constantly rest his head on Phil’s shoulder because the room was spinning too much. His speech was slurred, and he seemed to keep forgetting where he was, only the fact that Phil was there, and that his shoulder was comfortable.

“Dan, we should probably-“

“Ph _iii_ l,” Dan groaned, moving his head more towards Phil’s neck, his breath hot against his skin, “I wanna fuckin’… _die_.”

“Let’s not do that. Just focus on staying awake, okay?” Phil suggests, not entirely sure what to do with his hands.

“Phil, where’re we?” Dan questions, sniffling afterwards. “Like…fuck…I wanna _die_. Like…fuckin’ _die_ ‘n shit. Fuck.”

“Dan, I think-“

“You’re comfy, but _fuck_ I wanna die. Where are we?”

And, before Phil could even try to get Dan outside so they could get started walking back to Dan’s house where he could get some rest, Dan vomited on the staircase.

So, now, he and Dan are in the bathroom, Dan hysterically crying and coughing as he tries to throw up anything that’s in his system, as he just feels like complete and total crap.

Phil doesn’t want to be the person who says “I told you so”, so he just thinks it to himself as he rubs Dan’s back gently, taking every few seconds to also massage his shoulder or the back of his neck; anything that would make Dan feel better.

“Phil,” Dan groans into the toilet after throwing up a bunch.

Phil reaches over and flushes the toilet. “I’m right here, Dan. I’m right here.” He looks up at the sink beside them, seeing a stack of small paper cups resting next to the toothbrush holder. Mrs. Howell doesn’t like Dan to drink tap water; she only allows him to drink water that has been filtered.

But, Phil is 88 percent sure that there isn’t any filtered water anywhere in this house, so he reaches up, keeping one hand on Dan’s back, and grabs one of the cups and fills it with tap water. He hands it over to Dan.

“Swish it in your mouth and spit,” Phil says. Dan nods his head and does as he is asked. “Do you want to drink some water?”

“Phil,” Dan says, handing Phil the cup.

Phil takes it as a cue to fill it up. He does so, and then hands it back to Dan. “I’m right here, Dan. Don’t worry. I’m not leaving. Take a sip of water. We’ll see if it stays down.”

Dan once again nods his head and does what Phil told him to do. He drinks a miniscule sip slowly, setting the cup down on the floor. He keeps his head low, his nose basically inside the bowl of the toilet, and he breathes heavily.

“Are you going to be sick again?” Phil asks him, running a hand through Dan’s sweaty curly hair.

“I dunno,” Dan says, his voice still slightly slurred, though he’s certainly sobered up a little bit since throwing up.

“Do you want to rest your head on my shoulder?”

Dan instantly nods his head. Just like with the last time, Phil helps Dan move onto his side, Dan’s head lolling onto Phil’s bony shoulder. He closes his eyes and breathes heavily against Phil’s soft shirt. Phil wraps his arms around Dan, one hand rubbing circles onto Dan’s stomach. Dan settles in closely to Phil’s chest, resting comfortably…or, well, as comfortable as one can get when they’ve just been throwing up for ten minutes.

They sit there for a few moments before Dan tells Phil that he wants to go home. Nodding his head in agreement, they slowly stand up, as to not disturb Dan’s stomach even more. Phil takes Dan, wraps his arms around his shoulders, and basically walks him out of the bathroom, out the house, passing by Louise and PJ, who are slightly drunk and yelling at them for leaving.

The cold air certainly seemed to help Dan once they got outside, though before even leaving the neighborhood, Dan had to duck his head into one of the neighbor’s bushes and vomit again.

But once that was done, he already seemed to be sobering up even more, though he still needed Phil to lead him out of the neighborhood and back to his house.

It was a slow walk, probably taking fifteen minutes when it normally would take less than ten, but Dan would need to stop, make sure he wasn’t going to throw up or pause because his head spun, but soon enough, they made it to Dan’s house.

Phil got Dan some water, and he got him to be able to take a shower by himself, telling him to sit down in the tub so that he didn’t have to stand for too long, just in case his balance wasn’t steady still. While Dan showered, Phil prepared Dan’s pyjamas, as well as even more bottles of water, and he got his medicine ready as well. He also prepared a piece of toast, just in case Dan was feeling up to eating more, considering he had lost most of the food he had eaten when he threw up.

Dan came out of the shower just fine, and he managed to get changed by himself, which honestly made Phil extremely elated, since he didn’t have to deal with that (he would’ve been shaking with nerves if he had to dress Dan), and he got Dan settled into his bed.

“Take your meds?” Phil requests, gesturing to the tablets sitting on Dan’s bedside. Three of them were the nightly meds, and one of the others was a paracetamol.

Dan nods his head slowly. With a shaky hand, he takes the glass of water, takes some into his mouth, and then takes each of the tablets one by one and swallows them with the water. He has half the glass left when he’s done.

“Drink the rest if you can,” Phil instructs. “Only if you think you can keep it down. It’ll hurt your throat, but it’ll help you.”

Dan managed to get down a third of the half left, shaking his head as he pulled away, a look of disgust on his face.

“Good for you,” Phil tells him, rubbing his shoulder gently. “You’re going to be fine, right? Adrian is home in case you need him?”

Dan furrows his eyebrows. “What?”

“Your brother?” Phil says, thinking that Dan is still drunk and that his mind is still fuzzy on details.

“No, no, no,” Dan says, shaking his head slowly so he doesn’t get dizzier. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah,” Phil replies. “I’ve got to get home. Parents will be wondering where I am.”

Dan frowns, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Please?” Dan asks, his voice small.

The look is back – the one Phil can’t say no to. Not necessarily puppy-dog eyes, but similar. A pouty look.

“Fine,” Phil says. “I’ll sleep down in the living room in case you need me.”

Dan shakes his head again.

“What?”

“Stay here,” Dan says, pointing to the open space beside Dan.

It’s a twin-sized bed. There’s no way Phil is going to fit on that side with Dan there, too.

“Here?”

Dan nods. “Please?”

“Do you really want me to…?”

Dan nods.

Phil lets out a long sigh, giving the open space and Dan long glances. Does he really want him to sleep there? Right there, next to him, where their bodies would be touching?

Just the thought sends nerves and shakes down Phil’s spine.

“Are you sure?”

“For fuck’s…yes,” Dan answers, nodding his head and blinking slowly. “Just…please.”

Phil sighs again. He goes over and takes a seat on the bed, Dan looking over at him as he does so. Phil slips off his shoes and gets up onto the bed, still in his jeans and T-shirt. He lays down, nearing the edge of the bed, and Dan pulls the cover over the both of them. Dan settles into the bed, lying so he is facing Phil.

“Thank you,” he says, closing his eyes.

Phil feels his heart race, but he smiles at Dan, seeing his sleepy face. He reaches over and brushes Dan’s curly hair out from his face and settles more comfortably into the bed.

“You’re welcome,” he whispers.

But Dan has already fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TO THOSE WHO SKIPPED: once again, dan got very ill, but this time, it was from getting drunk at a school party that he and phil went to. it was a similar situation to the one in chapter seventeen, but they were a bit more cuddly than they had been in the previous situation.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I didn't post a chapter yesterday bc my normal laptop that I use decided to implode on itself and wouldn't load, and I couldn't keep it on long enough for me to post a chapter.
> 
> So now I'm on my slower, bulkier high school laptop with a flash drive perpetually placed in it w all the docs I managed to salvage from my normal laptop (which has to be taken into the shop), including all my phanfics (all, like, 200 of them or something lol i write a lot of one-shots shameless self promo head over to my tumblr if ya wanna see my one-shots they're pretty great okayyyy) 
> 
> So, I'll be posting two chapters today - one, obviously, right now, and one later, at the time I would normally post.
> 
> Sorry for the delay in posting!

They didn’t talk about what happened that night.

Actually, they don’t really talk _at all_ , if Phil’s being honest, except for one little text message that Phil got on Sunday night from Dan, and it had absolutely nothing to do with what happened Friday after the party.

 **Dan**  
at hospital parents made me go bc I got sick room is 213 if you bring hw   
(20:07)

Nothing like “hey, thanks for taking me home on Friday” or “hey, where did you go? You weren’t there when I woke up on Saturday” because, yes, Phil made the awkward and probably really rude decision Saturday morning to leave Dan alone in his bed instead of being there in the morning to be with him during his 99.9 percent likely hangover.

But, Phil woke up before the crack of dawn, saw that he was in bed with Dan, and did what every soap opera or drama film guy does: leaves so either the person in the bed with them doesn’t freak out or so they don’t get really scared and think that they did something else besides sleep in the same bed.

So, he grabbed his things, left some paracetamol and a glass of water on Dan’s nightstand, sent him a text that said he went home and that if he needs anything, call him.

He didn’t call.

Instead of getting a call or text from Dan asking him to come back because he didn’t want to be alone with his hangover or that he needed someone to play _Mario Kart_ with to distract him, Phil got an earful from his mum about making sure he lets her know where he is and what he’s doing, because he had neglected to do so last night.

He didn’t get grounded; Kathryn Lester isn’t the kind of mum to ground her children. She just gives them looks of disappointment for a whole day, or until she ends up feeling really bad about it and gives them a hug, telling them that she’s sorry for how she reacted, and that she should remember that they’re young adults and need their independence.

She’s _that_ kind of mum.

So, after returning home and after Kathryn’s small lecture, Phil found himself stood under the warm water in the shower for pretty much an hour, trying to do that cheesy thing that people always do in music videos, where they basically drown themselves in the shower as they’re having an emotional breakdown.

But Phil wouldn’t say he was having an emotional breakdown; he was just tired, confused, and feeling really weird about what happened between him and Dan.

He wasn’t sure why; it’s not like he’s never slept in the same bed as a friend before. During some of their class trips, PJ and Phil slept in the same bed, and it was never weird. And sometimes if they end up staying over at one of their houses, Phil and PJ or Phil and Caspar or Phil and _whoever_ will sleep in the same bed.

They never cuddled, though. But it wasn’t weird.

And one of them wasn’t drunk.

And one of them didn’t have a crush on the other.

Wait, what?

Scratch that. It’s just Phil’s mind tricking him. He definitely doesn’t think that way about Dan. Not at all. No way, no how. It’s not possible, Phil. It’s not possible. Dan just broke up with his girlfriend, and Phil just broke up with his boyfriend. It’s not possible in any way, shape, or form. He’s not ready to date him or do anything of the sort with him.

That’s what got him to get out of the shower. He was so sure he was going crazy if he kept thinking about it.

So, for the next two days, for the rest of the weekend, Phil found himself in a hole of emotions, not able to do things he knew he needed to or anything of the sort.

He’s just confused. That’s all it is. Just confused on why he feels like this and why Dan hasn’t texted him or called him. He’s had a rough few days – it’s normal to be asking things like that, right? He’s just confused about it.

Because, for God’s sake, they don’t even have to talk about what happened. They can just talk about homework or talk about films and music or anything like that.

But, Phil realizes Sunday night just what the problem was when Dan _did_ end up texting him: he was ill all weekend and was now in hospital because of it.

Phil googled it because he was curious and didn’t know if Dan wanted to explain it himself. Alcohol mixed with some chemotherapy drugs or even just normal AML medication can cause problems, including getting sick, and that’s what happened to Dan. 

So, as he always does, he went to the Student Success Center after school on Monday and picked up Dan’s things that he missed during the day. He wasn’t entirely sure if Dan’s text insinuated that he _wanted_ Phil to come to the hospital with his homework.

Because, perhaps, if he’s mad at Phil, he just wants Phil to bring the homework and do nothing else. Or, on the other hand, maybe he wants to see Phil to talk about what happened.

Or maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it at all.

Because, after all, Dan didn’t call him _at all_ that weekend, even when Phil told him to in case he needed anything, or, hell, even with his parents basically putting Phil in charge of taking care of Dan if he needed it.

And even though he had gotten sick, he waited until his parents were home and he had _them_ take him to the hospital instead. He didn’t make Phil take him, even though Phil would’ve been more than happy to.

This is why Phil is so confused.

And why he took approximately nineteen thousand showers over the weekend.

He took the bus over to the hospital this time, as it is mid-November and the weather was starting to get extremely chilling and cold – a little bit too cold to ride his bike, in Phil’s opinion.

The school would have the following week of school off for fall break, and then finals would quickly be approaching after that – only around two or three weeks later.

Phil still hasn’t gotten Mrs. Howell’s signatures on all his and Dan’s dates that they’ve met up and studied. He had just recently taken the time to actually fill out everything, including guessing what exactly they looked out certain days while also trying to figure out which days they just spent talking about nonsense or playing _Mario Kart._ He’s totaled far more hours than he ever thought he would’ve gotten, even excluding all the times he and Dan didn’t actually end up studying, which was quite interesting, in Phil’s opinion.

But, since he has it ready to go now, and this seems like the perfect opportunity to finally get this part of the assignment completed so he can crank the essay out and turn it in on time, he figures that perhaps he can ask Mrs. Howell to sign these if she’s there.

Phil is not sure about where his friends are with the assignment; if he’s being honest, the only times he speaks with them is during lunchtime, which, even then, he spends it mostly studying or doing homework, as he has been slacking recently considering all the time he’s spent hanging out with Dan.

God, everything just seems to be going straight back to him. He needs a shower _pronto_.

He heads into the hospital, following the familiar path. He’s only visited Dan a few times in the hospital, the last time being when he had gotten sick after chemotherapy yet, even so, he still has found himself knowing the way around to the ward Dan is always in.

The door to room 213 is wide open, and Mrs. Howell is standing outside the room, typing away on her phone as she leans against the pale walls. She looks up when she hears Phil approaching the room.

“Oh, Phil! You’re here. I didn’t think Dan told you,” she says to him, slipping her phone into her pocket and standing up straight, brushing the wrinkles out of her clothes.

“He texted me last night that he was taken here, and I just wanted to drop off his homework from today,” Phil explains. “Didn’t want him to keep falling behind.”

“Well, at this rate, you’re probably going to be giving him homework for the entire week. Maybe more,” she replies, shaking her head and crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t know what happened; he told us he had been getting ill all weekend, but he wouldn’t give us any potential reasoning for why.”

“Well…flu season is upon us,” Phil says awkwardly, and even he isn’t sure of his answer. He clears his throat and gestures to the paper on top of the stack of books he is holding in his hands. “Um, can I ask you something real quick?”

“Yes, but I do need to give this person a call back,” Mrs. Howell replies, gesturing to the phone in her pocket.

Phil nods his head. “Um…can I get your signatures for this? Um…so, one of them is for the Student Success Center, as they just want to make sure that I’ve been tutoring Dan and that we’ve been working together, and the other one is for my English teacher.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his pen, then moves the books closer to Mrs. Howell can see the sheets of paper.

“What’s the English one for?” she asks as she signs the paper for the Student Success Center.

“For an assignment,” Phil answers. “For the entire semester, we were meant to complete ten hours of service, and tutoring Dan will count as that. They just want to confirm that I’ve been doing tutoring for the assignment.”

Mrs. Howell nods her head and signs that sheet of paper as well. She then sets the pen on top of the sheets with a sigh. “Well, would you mind watching over Dan while I go talk to this person? I should only be gone ten minutes.”

Phil nods his head. “I’d be happy to.”

“Great.” Without another word or waiting to hear Phil’s response, she takes off down the hall, grabbing her phone and tapping on it again as she rushes down to the other end of the corridor as Phil takes the signature sheets and puts them into his back pocket.

Once he’s done that, Phil takes in a deep breath, wishing for his heartrate and his breathing to slow down so he can feel alright about this. He feels anxious, when he knows he shouldn’t. It’s just Dan. It’s just one of his friends. One of his best friends. It’s all going to be fine.

He steps into the doorway of the room, seeing Dan laid on his bed, though he’s not on his computer or his phone or anything; he’s just staring at the wall with a blank expression.

Phil, confused, knocks on the open door. Dan doesn’t even turn to look at him.

Phil clears his throat to make his presence known even more. “Hey, Dan,” he says, his voice sounding far shakier than he had anticipated. He mentally kicks himself in the shins for it.

Dan blinks slowly, as if he’s almost falling asleep, despite sitting up straight. He slowly turns his head to look at Phil, the speed he does it at almost painful to watch. But instead of responding, Dan just stares blankly at him.

Phil smiles awkwardly. Something seems a little off, but he won’t say that out loud for fear of offending Dan. In a normal situation, if he were to say that, Dan would give a sassy, snarky response before they went on their merry way. Except, as Phil has noticed and stated previously, something about this seems off, so Phil has no idea really what to say.

“Hey,” Phil repeats, walking over to Dan’s bedside. “I, uh…I have your homework…your homework that you missed today, I mean. I...uh…yeah.”

Dan continues to look at him.

He clears his throat again and trains his eyes on the books in his hands. “Um…yeah, we have another history exam after break, which kinda sucks, since that means we, you know…have to read everything over break. But he’s going to give us a lot more options on this one, since the Romans had so many writers and stuff, so…that’ll be fine. Um…anatomy quiz was easy, but I’m sure I still failed it, and…um-“

“Phil,” Dan says, his voice weak. Phil looks up to see Dan looking back at the wall again.

“Yeah?”

Dan bites his bottom lip, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Are you okay?”

Dan blinks.

“You okay? You with me? Earth to Daniel?”

“You…you’re using me for an assignment?” Dan asks, looking back up at Phil, his voice slow and slurred, similar to how it had been Friday night. His eyes are wide, as if full of fear or anxiety.

“What?” Phil asks, trying to hide the fact that his chest has just tightened and fear has just spread throughout his entire body.

No. Dan was not taking this the wrong way. Not at all. No. That’s not what’s happening. That can’t be what’s happening. That’s not possible, and that’s not what Phil wants to happen. That can’t be possible. No. Not at all. Nope.

“You’re…using me.”

Phil furrows his eyebrows and walks over to a chair and sets the books down on them. “No,” he says. “Where…where did-“

“My mum.”

Phil lets out a sigh, his shoulders slumping. “Dan, you’re getting-“

“You’re using me,” Dan says, his voice getting louder than it had been before, though his voice still slurred. He turns back to the wall. “You didn’t…you didn’t care about-“

“Dan, no,” Phil says, setting his books down before walking over to Dan’s bedside, placing a hand down on the mattress, right beside Dan’s arm. Dan shifts it, however, so that they don’t dare touch by accident. “Dan, you’re-“

“You didn’t care. You didn’t care. You didn’t care.”

“Dan, please,” Phil says, his heart racing fast. He reaches for his hand once again, but Dan fully moves it so it is situated in his lap. “Please listen to me-“

“ _You didn’t care!_ ” Dan screams, wrapping his arms around himself and moving himself so he is sitting more on the other half of the bed, further away from Phil. He looks up at Phil, his face scrunched up in a look that almost reads disgust, and a look of confusion, and it snaps Phil’s heart completely in half. “ _You used me for an assignment-“_

“Dan, I didn’t!” Phil screams, his own face turning a bright pink. He doesn’t want to yell, he doesn’t want to scream, but he doesn’t know what else to do to try and get Dan to listen to him. “I didn’t! I never did! I would never do that! I promise!”

Dan groans and falls back onto his bed, resting against the pillow, wrapping his arms around himself. He breathes heavily, and Phil thinks that he’s begun to cry.

“Dan, please, I didn’t say that! I didn’t mean it!”

Dan lets out a groan and a sob. “ _Then why did you tell my mum-“_

All of a sudden, Dan’s body goes stiff. Phil stares closely at him, waiting for him to finish his sentence, but he doesn’t; his mouth starts trying to form words, but it doesn’t work; he repeatedly blinks his eyes, still tears falling down his cheeks, and Phil can hear him breathe deeply, as if trying to grasp for air after being dunked underwater.

“Dan? Dan? Are you okay? Can you hear me?” Phil asks, not wanting to touch him for fear of hurting him or causing something to happen, but he does move closer to him to try to look at him in the eyes. “Dan? Move for me? Let me know you’re still here?”

He lies there, blinking rapidly and rapidly, moving faster and faster, and after a few moments, he stops moving his mouth; he suddenly starts shifting back and forth, his torso moving randomly.

“Dan? You’re scaring me! What’s going on?”

And, without even a second of warning, Dan’s right leg starts convulsing uncontrollably, and only a few seconds later, his arm, and then after, his entire body, causing him to fall back onto the mattress.

And that’s when Phil realizes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please don't kill me


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter has depictions of someone having a seizure.   
> If you are not comfortable with reading that:  
> (if you're on a laptop): ctrl+f or (if you're on mobile) scroll down to the phrase "Right as the clock hits 15:41". You can start reading from there!

Phil stares at him, the world beginning to go into slow motion.

He had completely forgotten that this can happen; it had completely slipped his mind somehow. Mrs. Howell had told him that this could be a thing that can possibly happen, so he knew that in the back of his mind. Hell, he’d been to health class last year; he should’ve at least been able to recognize the signs.

The slowness, the inability to form a complete thought, forgetfulness (which is what Phil is blaming on why Dan kept repeating the same things over and over), the fact that he wasn’t on any kind of electric device because it probably hurt his brain…it all adds up. And Phil didn’t freaking notice when he definitely should’ve.

Without even realizing exactly what he’s doing, Phil moves even closer to the bed, and, within a few seconds, he manages to remove all of Dan’s pillows, blankets, phone, and tele remote from the bed, putting them unceremoniously onto the floor so Dan doesn’t knock into them to injure himself even more.

He looks at the time on the alarm clock beside Dan’s bed. It’s 15:39. When it passes 15:42, that’s when Phil knows they’re in trouble.

He doesn’t know what to do with Dan; he remembers Mrs. Howell telling him not to touch Dan if he ends up having a seizure, but now Phil realizes that he doesn’t know what else to do, as that was his first instinct: to comfort him by resting a hand on his shoulder or on his arm.

But he can’t, otherwise he’ll hurt Dan or Dan will hurt him (not that he necessarily cares about the latter at this point in time).

So, he ends up on a search to try and find the call button for Dan’s nurse. Phil circles around the bed, trying to find the little remote that has the call button on it. He finds it on Dan’s left side, dangling from underneath the mattress. Phil takes it and presses the red button, and it glows briefly until Phil releases it.

He looks back up at the clock. 15:40. Dan is still convulsing, though it has calmed down significantly. His eyes are still partially rolled back, but his movements were less severe and were calming down as time passed.

Right as the clock hits 15:41, Phil hears someone walk into the room. Instinctively, he moves out of the way and turns around, seeing a nurse come up to the bed.

“He-“

“Had a seizure,” the nurse interrupts, walking over to Dan, who has now stopped shaking, his body gone basically limp, as if he had just gotten done running a marathon. His eyes are closed, and he is breathing heavily. The nurse places a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “How long was it?”

“Two minutes,” Phil answers.

“Good,” she responds. “Not longer than that?”

“No,” Phil says.

She sighs and takes her stethoscope, which had been around her neck and places the eartips into her ears, and then rests the bell on Dan’s chest. Dan’s eyes are closed extremely tight, and he looked as though he wanted to curl up into a ball to relieve some of the pain, though it didn’t seem like he had a lot of energy to do so. Phil knows that seizures can take a lot out of someone mentally and physically, and considering this was Dan’s first seizure, from what Phil understood based on what Mrs. Howell told him, he must be in a lot of pain.

“His heartrate is certainly ticking along, but I think he’ll be fine.” The nurse looks back at Phil and gives him a warm smile. “Well, thank you for calling me in here. I can take it over from here.” She turns to Dan. “Unless you want him to stay, Dan?”

Dan, with the little strength he has, looks at Phil through his peripheral vision, and then shakes his head, laying it back down on his bed afterwards.

If Phil could describe what it felt like to see that, he would say it was like a stab straight to the chest.

\------------------------------------

“You’re back so soon,” Kathryn says the second Phil walks in through the front door of the house. Kathryn and Nigel are right there, in the living room on the couch, Nigel with a book and Kathryn with the tele remote in her hand, channel surfing. Martyn’s car wasn’t in the driveway, so Phil assumes he is out with Cornelia.

Phil nods his head as he closes the door, slipping off his shoes as he does so.

“Was Dan busy?” she asks.

Phil shakes his head.

Kathryn instantly notices something is wrong as Phil crosses the room, intending to go right up to his bedroom, where he was going to drown his sorrows in Haribo and cute compilations of dogs. And he’d probably end up taking a two-hour long shower as well. He’d go back to how he was as a twelve-year-old and sit down. He never knew why he did that, but the idea certainly sounds pleasant right now.  

“Phil, what’s wrong?” she asks sympathetically as Phil passes her by, heading out to the hallway.

“Nothing,” Phil calls back monotonously. His voice sounds tired, even though he hasn’t done anything to make him feel tired. It’s just how he feels in this moment.

“Philip, come back in here,” Nigel says loudly, and Phil can hear him set down his book, which means he definitely wants to talk about what is or isn’t bothering Phil. Phil knows all the signs.

Phil lets out a sigh. He can’t disobey his parents, despite how much he really, really wants to in this moment. So, he turns around and stands so he is leaning against the wall of the hallway, looking into the living room. “Yes?” he asks, trying his hardest not to sound annoyed, otherwise his mum would definitely get quite mad…or as angry as Kathryn Lester can get, at least.

Kathryn gestures to the arm chair adjacent to the couch she and Nigel are sitting on. “Sit, child,” she requests.

Phil does as he is asked, and he goes around to the chair and sits on it, pulling his legs up with him. He rests his chin atop his knees.

“Why are you so down?” Kathryn asks, looking at Phil inquisitively. “You’re normally in such a good mood after you’ve visited Dan.”

Phil shrugs. “I’m fine, Mum.”

“You don’t seem it,” Nigel replies. “What’s going on?”

“Did something happen?”

Phil rests his head in his hand. He sighs for the umpteenth time, but he doesn’t say anything out loud.

“Oh, Phil, are you and Dan okay?” Kathryn asks when Phil hasn’t answered. “Did something happen? Is everything alright?”

Phil looks off to the side, trying to process his thoughts. He doesn’t even know where to begin with this. There’s so many things going on…not even just with what happened today or even over the weekend. There’s a lot more going on that Phil just can’t find the words to explain.

It’s like everything he and Dan had been doing together and the friendship-relationship-whatever has just crumbled all because Phil was a freaking idiot who said something stupid that Dan just-so-happened to overhear. And now he must absolutely despise him.

And Phil doesn’t blame him for it; he feels like such a freaking asshole. He’s so freaking stupid.

Scratch that: he’s so _fucking_ stupid.

(But don’t tell his mum he thought that).

Phil sighs. “Just…a lot,” he says. “A lot has been happening.”

“Do you want to tell us what happened?” Nigel questions.

“You can tell us anything, dear,” Kathryn adds.

Phil knows he should tell them. It would be the right thing to do, right? But he told Dan that he would never tell anyone about it…they even _pinkie swore_ over it, the highest form of contract in Phil’s mind. It doesn’t seem like the right thing to do to break that.

And, in Phil’s mind, he swore to himself that he would never tell anybody about Dan’s cancer. He promised himself he wouldn’t because he knew that was what Dan wanted. He didn’t want anyone to know because he felt like they would treat him differently, just like his mum does.

But Phil feels like now, at this point, where Dan will probably never want to talk to him ever again, that it’s the one thing he knows he has to do. He can’t just hide it from his parents anymore.

Phil takes a deep breath. “Um…Dan is now mad at me…he, uh…he overheard me talking to his mum so I could get the signatures for the Student Success Center and for my assignment, and I stupidly said that…that tutoring Dan was for the assignment. And Dan heard it. Now he hates me.”

Both Nigel and Kathryn look at Phil with sympathetic expressions. “Oh, Philip,” Kathryn says quietly.

“Did you try to explain?” Nigel asks.

Phil nods his head. “I did, but, uh…there’s something I haven’t told you guys about Dan…um…” he lets out a deep sigh and tries to control the tears that are preparing to break down the emotional wall he has put up, “…he…he has leukemia.”

He slowly looks back up at them, and they are now staring at him with surprised expressions, though neither of them make a move.

Phil clears his throat and adjusts his seating, taking their silence as a cue to continue speaking. “So…that just made everything worse, as if I was just…using Dan for a pity and for an assignment, when I really wasn’t. He’s in the hospital right now because he’s sick, and I, uh…I went to drop off his things, but he heard me talking to his mum before I came in to the room, and he got pissed and…and, like, I knew something was off, but I still kept trying to defend myself. And…yeah…before I could get a chance to explain, he had a small seizure and…and after, he told me to leave…and…he hates me now.”

“Phil…”

Phil sniffles, suddenly feeling very emotional, as if the dam is about to break. “He hates me, and I don’t know what to do about it. He doesn’t want to be around me anymore all because I said something stupid.” And because of other reasons that Phil will hold back on mentioning. They don’t need to know about that yet…or at all, now that Phil thinks about it.

“Oh, Phil, no,” Kathryn says, getting up from her seat. She goes over to Phil and sits down on the armrest of the chair, wrapping an arm around him. “You’ve been dealing with all this but didn’t tell us?”

Phil nods his head. “I’m sorry,” he says, leaning his head on his mum’s chest.

“Don’t apologize,” Nigel tells him. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I never told you,” Phil says.

“You didn’t have to,” Nigel replies. “It wasn’t necessarily our information to know at that time, when you two were first becoming friends, but we’re glad that you told us now.”

“Philip, he doesn’t hate you,” Kathryn says, going back to the previous part of the conversation. “There’s no way he could.”

“It’s all just a simple misunderstanding,” Nigel adds, nodding his head in agreement with his wife.

“A misunderstanding that has caused him to hate me,” Phil mumbles, looking down at his lap.

Kathryn rubs his shoulders gently. “He doesn’t hate you,” she replies. “You’ve just got to explain your situation to him. You didn’t do it just to get the assignment; you did it to help him. That’s what you have to tell him.”

“If he’ll even listen to me.”

“You just have to make him listen,” Nigel says, as if it is the simplest thing in the world.

“But be kind when you do it,” Kathryn says. She grins and shakes his shoulder lovingly. “Not that I have to worry about you doing that.”

Phil gives a small smile.

Kathryn pats his shoulders. “Now, why don’t you run up to your room and get into your pyjamas? We’ll have a pizza night to help you feel better and to get your mind off this. That sound okay?”

Phil nods his head. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please please don't kill me


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

_"Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. Please leave your message after the tone_."

Phil sighs as he hears the annoying tone that he’s received approximately five times already today. “Hey, Dan…um…it’s Phil, obviously, um…since you…you know…have my phone number and everything, but, uh…yeah, um…I know you probably hate me and want nothing to do with me, which I totally understand, but…um…yeah, I think we’ve just had a misunderstanding, and I want to have a chance to explain everything, and…uh…yeah, so…I know you probably won’t, but…um…if you would call me or text me or…I dunno…email, whatever…um…anything, really…um…that would be great.”

He clears his throat and looks off to the side. “Um…I really miss you, but…I’ll stop bothering you when you tell me to stop. Um…I know…I know you’re ill right now, and I know you’re recovering, but…um…give me a call, uh…whenever…whenever you can. I’d…I’d really appreciate it. Or just communicate in…in any way you can. That would be…that would be great. Um…I miss you. I think I already said that. Ignore me. But not. Call me. Or text. Whatever. Okay. Um…bye.”

Shaking his head with disbelief of how completely stupid he sounded, he pulls his phone away from his ear, pressing the end call button. Frustrated and not knowing what else to do, he throws his phone across the room, it landing underneath his desk, missing the wheels of his chair just barely. At least he knows his phone survived.

He flops himself down onto his bed, burying his head in his pillow. If he was home alone, he’d scream into his pillow, letting out some kind of release of anger and frustration, but his parents are downstairs, and Martyn is in his bedroom right next to Phil’s room, so he can’t do that.

It’s been a few days, and Phil swears to God he is going absolutely nuts.

Over these past few days, he’s been doing exactly what Kathryn told him to do: tried to tell Dan what his side of the story was. What he truly meant by what he said to Mrs. Howell in the hospital.

But, Phil hasn’t even gotten a _sliver_ of a chance to tell him because Dan won’t respond to anything Phil does to try and communicate with him.

And, yeah, Phil is fully aware that Dan is recovering and that he’s really ill right now, probably dealing with all new medications because, unfortunately, some of the cancer has managed to spread to his brain. So, yeah, he’s dealing with a lot at the moment, and Phil knows that.

But Dan won’t respond to anything. It’s been, like, three or four days or something like that. Phil has lost count; fall break is nearing and he can’t process anything because he also has this going on right now.

He can’t concentrate on anything because this is literally all he can focus on.

Like, he’s sure his grades are going to start suffering soon because he literally can’t do anything besides think about his situation with Dan. That’s all he can do and even think _about_ doing. Homework is just like another thing to add onto his brain activity, which is already high enough as it is, and make him more stressed out.

He’s thinking so hard right now that he doesn’t even really hear his brother knock on his bedroom door, allowing himself to just waltz right in when Phil doesn’t reply.

“Yo, little brother, we’re going out for dinner. Uncle George and Aunt Marsha are in town.”

“Not going,” Phil mumbles, his voice probably very hard to understand due to the fabric of his pillow.

“Why not? We’re going to that one pizza place you really like. The one with the arcade and the ticket prizes, you know? You were really excited when we told you we were doing this,” Martyn reminds him. The family had this all planned out for probably a few weeks now, since their aunt and uncle told them they were going to be in town. Never once had Phil mentioned not going; it was very much assumed that all of them were going, as it is a family outing.

Phil shakes his head. “Don’t feel like it.”

He can almost hear Martyn slump his shoulders exasperatedly. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks in almost an overly-exaggerated annoyed voice.

“Nothing.”

“Then you should be fine to go, shouldn’t you?”

“I’m not going.”

Martyn nods his head. “Being the killjoy, I see. Wonderful. Always wondered when you were going to join the dark side.” Phil thinks that when he says that, it means he’s going to leave. But instead, he remains put in the room. “No, but seriously, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s the most BS answer on the face of the planet. I hope you’re aware that no one believes you when you say that nothing is wrong.”

“Shut up.”

“So you _are_ joining the dark side.” He shakes his head. “Tsk. I thought higher of you, Philly.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Rude,” Martyn retorts. Phil can hear him start walking away towards the door. “Well, what do you want me to tell parents? That you’re not feeling well?”

Phil nods his head.

“Will do. Well, enjoy being alone for the night. Can’t guarantee we’ll bring you home food, though.”

He waits for some kind of response from Phil, but Phil is far too tired to try and come up with something sarcastic or faux-rude to say in response, so he just lies there, still in his potion.

“Alright, then,” Martyn says as he starts to exit the room. “See you later, little bro.” He steps out into the hallway and closes the door behind him.

Phil remains in his same position, just tired and lying there, not able to do much else. The family leaves a few minutes later, Phil able to hear the garage door open and close as they leave.

When they actually leave the house, after around fifteen minutes after, Phil finally gets up from his spot and, ignoring his phone, goes into the bathroom to take a shower for far too much time. The water bill will definitely be very high this month.

He stands under the warm water, just letting it drip down his hair, flattening it to his face and the back of his neck. He breathes in deeply, and out with a bit of stagger and uneasiness, not finding enough energy to fully breathe comfortably.

His hair doesn’t cause the water to turn black like it normally does, meaning it’s been too much time in between dyeing his hair again. His ginger roots are definitely showing, and the black has faded significantly. He has the dye in his bedroom, waiting for him to use it, but he just hasn’t bothered to re-dye his hair yet. He just can’t bring himself to do it.

He slowly sinks himself to the floor of the tub, sitting down so he can rest his chin on his knees. He wraps his arms around his legs, and he closes his eyes, just listening to the sounds of the water hitting the ground as he tries to clear his thoughts.

Is he over-reacting? Probably.

Is he getting too worked up about it? Definitely.

Can he bring himself to stop? Not at all.

What can he do now? Dan doesn’t want to listen to him. Dan probably doesn’t even want to be near him ever again.

And Phil understands why. Dan has pretty much every reason in the world to hate him right now. From Dan’s point-of-view, it looks as though Phil completely used him for his own personal needs and took advantage of him. That’s pretty freaking shitty, and Phil knows that “what he did” and how he worded the situation makes it seem like that.

But at the same time, Dan isn’t allowing Phil to explain everything. He has reasons and explanations for everything, but Dan isn’t allowing him to say those things. He’s blatantly ignoring him.

And once again, Phil understands that.

But he needs to talk to Dan. He needs to, otherwise he’ll go absolutely freaking insane.

\----------------------------------------------

After his shower, which lasted a good hour or so, Phil got dressed and, without even thinking about it, grabbed his bike from the garage and headed out in the cold November weather and found himself riding the familiar path to the hospital.

He doesn’t even really know what in his mind told him to do this; it just kind of happened. He suddenly just got an urge to head over there; he can’t explain it because it literally doesn’t make sense at all.

He just subconsciously started heading on his way to the hospital, despite it being so cold outside. He definitely wasn’t wearing the proper gear; he didn’t have a coat or a hat or anything of the sort on; just an old shirt that was at the back of his closet and the jeans that he definitely desperately needed to wash. His shoes weren’t even properly tied.

He made his way to the hospital without any issue. Once he was there, he locked his bike on the bike rack and walked straight inside, heading up to Dan’s room, completely bypassing the receptionist.

He was honestly tempted to just burst into the room without any kind of warning, but by the time he reached the door, his sense of reality kicked in and he realized just how freaking stupid he would be if he did that.

So, he uses the hand sanitizer that is hanging on the wall right outside Dan’s room, which he definitely would’ve forgotten about if he had just burst into the room without any ounce of warning. Letting out a long sigh and trying to keep his breathing at a normal rate, he reaches up a hand and knocks on the wooden door afterwards.

A small “come in” is heard, and Phil knows for sure that it is Dan. He opens up the door and steps inside. Dan is in the room, sitting on the hospital bed in his gown, his laptop in front of him. He has an IV stuck into his wrist, as well as a small bandage wrapped around his upper left arm. He looks paler, his hair looks significantly fluffier, and the bags under his eyes are more pronounced than they usually are.

He doesn’t frown at him or yell at him. He just stares, and Phil doesn’t know what to do besides stare back at him. They do this for a few seconds, though it feels like minutes due to the silence between them, just looking at each other with blank looks on their faces.

“What are you doing here?” Dan finally asks, his voice rough and scratchy. He must still be ill from the party or something like that. Or Phil just really needs to stop making assumptions.  

Phil takes one more step into the room. “I wanted to talk to you,” he says, his voice shaking far more than he anticipated it to.

“And I _don’t_ want to talk to you,” Dan replies, turning away from him to start typing away on his laptop again.

“Dan, please,” Phil practically begs, walking up to him even more, causing Dan to stop typing again. “Please, just…just let me speak to you.”

Dan doesn’t talk. Phil knows for sure he’s listening, but he is just choosing to not respond. Dan returns to typing, blatantly ignoring him.

“Dan, seriously. Please. I want to explain everything. I…I made a mistake in how I worded what I was doing with you to your mum. earlier I didn’t mean it in the way I said it. And I’m truly, truly sorry for that. But you have to let me explain.”

Dan continues to act as though he is ignoring Phil.

“Please just…just listen to me. I didn’t mean it when I said I was helping you out _just_ for an assignment. I didn’t mean that at all. You should know that; we’ve become friends, and…and I really do, you know…care abou-“

“Don’t you have some other sick kids you need to help out so you can finish your fucking assignment?” Dan asks, keeping his head low, his eyes planted on the floor, as if terrified to look into Phil’s eyes.

Phil slumps his shoulders and walks up to Dan’s bedside. “Dan, please, for the love of God, hear me when I say that I am so sorry for what I said.”

“I don’t want to listen, Phil. I really don’t,” Dan says, his voice gone cold. He still refuses to look up at Phil. “I don’t…I don’t want to. You said what you said.” He shakes his head and turns away, looking back at his screen. “Just…just stop. Please.”

“Dan, I can’t just let you sit around, thinking that I was using you for a grade, because, and I swear to God I’m not lying when I say I wasn’t using you. I would never dream of doing such a thing. It’s all just a misunderstanding.”

“Oh, is it now?” Dan asks sarcastically.

Phil slumps his shoulders and looks over to the side, trying to find the proper words to say. He feels frustration settle in his stomach, and he feels it a sign that he shouldn’t even be trying this right now. But he can’t. He can’t just sit around and let this happen; Dan can’t keep thinking that he was being used like that.  

So, he turns back to him. “Dan, come on; just please, hear me out-“

“I told you everything,” Dan interrupts. “I told you my biggest secret. I trusted you to know that. But I should’ve thought about it; why would my fucking tutor _actually care_ about me and my situation? Oh, just so he can use me to his advantage. All he needed in his life was some lowly sick kid who can’t fucking do his homework on his own because he’s spending a majority of his time in fucking chemotherapy. I was the perfect thing for you so you could finish your fucking assignment.”

He shakes his head, his face turning a deep shade of red. “I fucking cared, and I trusted you. And then I learn you never fucking cared at all. I was just some project for you. Some pity project for your fucking service assignment. That’s all I was to you. I should’ve never fucking trusted you.”

Phil feels as though he is on the verge of tears, and he tries to fight them back; he told himself he wasn’t going to cry over this, and here he is, about to let the dam break. His stomach aches and his heart is beating so fast, and all he wants is for Dan to know that he never meant to make it seem like he was just an assignment to him.

He sniffles and shakes his head. “Dan, please, please, please, _please_ listen! I care about you! I do! This was all just a misunderstanding!”

“For fuck’s sake…” Dan mumbles under his breath.

“Dan, just please hear me out and listen to my apology-“

“When you have to explain your apology, it’s not a good apology.”

“Dan, seriously-“

“Please leave. I don’t want to hear this,” Dan interrupts, finally looking up at Phil. It looks as though he, too, has tears in his eyes. “Just leave me alone. You won’t have to deal with me any fucking more. You got my mum’s signatures. You’re done with me.”

“Dan, I don’t want-“

“Just leave.”

“Dan-“

“ _Leave_!” Dan shouts, his voice echoing in the room, probably sounding out towards the entire wing of the hospital.

It replays over and over in Phil’s mind, his eyes widening. He feels the dam cracking and cracking, about to burst at any moment. And second now and his tears will start to fall.

He gulps harshly and sniffles. He nods his head. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll leave.”

He tries to think of something else to add on, as the sentence just hangs in the air, but he can’t find anything else that would work or any words that Dan would even bother to hear.

He shakes his head and hastily turns around before Dan can see.

He walks out of the room, and, in a daze, walks back out to the cold air, it much harsher than how it was when he entered it.

The second he makes it to the bike rack, the wave of emotion rushes over him, and with one final crack, the dam breaks, and his tears come rushing down his cheeks.

Sobbing and crying into his arms for Lord-knows-how-long, he stands there, hopelessly at the bike rack. He just sobs and cries and can’t do anything else but that. Not even think properly. Not even breathe properly.

He shakes his head and kicks the back wheel of his bike, hoping it would release some kind of anger inside him. It just makes him angrier.

He can’t lose Dan. He can’t. He’s already lost one important person in his life only a few months ago; he can’t lose another so soon.

And even then – Dan is far more important to Phil than Charlie ever was. He can’t risk losing someone that important to him just because he was an idiot and made a huge mistake.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

“Phil, you haven’t left your room at all this break except to get food and to go to the bathroom. You need to get up and do something. Dad and I are worried,” Kathryn says from the other side of Phil’s bedroom door.

Fall break has arrived, and in the following week, finals will start happening and everyone will be going crazy preparing for them, and afterwards, Christmas will be coming up quickly, December basically flying by within the blink of an eye. And only a few weeks after that, the second semester of the school year will commence.  

Phil during this time of the year normally takes up a job for the holidays, usually at this local bookshop where the owners are friends of Kathryn and Nigel, but this year, Phil is highly considering not doing it. He’s not feeling up to it, and he doesn’t feel like he’ll have the energy or the enthusiasm to man the cash register at this shop. He doesn’t feel like doing it this year.

Once he returns to school, that Friday that he comes back is the day his assignment is due. And for whatever reason, that isn’t settling right with him.

All he has left is to write that stupid paper, and then he’ll be done with it. And he can honestly crank out a good paper without much need of editing in about one-to-two hours, but he just can’t bring himself to do it.

He also has loads of other homework that he should probably be doing within this time, yet he just doesn’t feel like doing it. He’s not in the mood to do really anything; all he wants to do is just stay put in his pyjamas, lie in his bed, and watch an unorthodox number of YouTube videos. That sounds literally like the only thing he can handle right now.

He can’t stop thinking about what happened. It’s honestly not possible – the sound of Dan yelling at him to leave echoes through his mind, and he just can’t seem to forget it. He can’t stop thinking about it – how angry he had been, how disappointed, how _whatever_.

It broke Phil’s heart in half – Dan is so stubborn and so set in his ways that he wouldn’t even _dream_ of listening to what Phil had to say.

“When you have to explain your apology, it’s not a good apology.”

Phil closes his eyes tightly the second he feels himself about to burst into tears. Grasping to his pillow with a clenched fist, he buries his head into the soft fabric and lets a few tears slip out, not able to help himself.

“Phil, darling, come on; you need to get up and do something,” Kathryn urges, knocking on the door even more. “Why don’t we have Lester Family Game Night? We can be partners for charades? And we can order in takeout?”

Phil curls his over-six-foot-tall self even more into a ball, if that is even physically possible, and he pulls the covers over his head even more.

“Philip, please; we’re all worried about you,” Kathryn says, the sound of the door creaking open not even bothering Phil like it normally would. He hears his mum sigh when she sees her youngest son’s state.

“Oh, Philip…” she mutters under her breath as she walks into the room. Phil feels the edge of his bed dip, and then the comforting hand of his mum running her fingers through his hair, which still desperately needs to be re-dyed.

Phil doesn’t say anything, but he does move his head closer to his mum’s hand.

“Something must’ve gone really wrong, huh?” she says. “What happened?”

Phil shakes his head, not wanting to speak about it. Even just thinking about it was enough to give him a terrible nauseating feeling at the pit of his stomach.

“Phil, you know you can tell me anything.”

Phil still doesn’t respond. He turns his head to the side, facing his wall but facing away from his mum.

“Is this about Dan?” she asks, her voice dropping even quieter.

Hearing his name just makes Phil want to cry even more; he curls up even tighter, wrapping his arms around himself. That instantly is a cue to Kathryn that she figured out what was wrong.

“Oh, Phil,” she says, rubbing his back and the back of his neck. “Oh, child, what happened?”

Phil shakes his head. He just wants to forget all of this ever happened. If he somehow could wipe away the memories from, say, these past few weeks, Phil would. He wants to forget he ever hurt Dan. He can’t stand the thought of him hurting Dan, yet he did so easily, without even thinking about it.

Dan doesn’t deserve that; he’s going through enough already, what with his first cycle still not progressing and also being sick at the same time, while also dealing with the side-effects, from as little to him losing his hair, to as big as him having a seizure.

And even if he wasn’t dealing with those things, he _still_ wouldn’t deserve it because he’s too kind of a person. He’s too caring, too loving; he might seem cold and perhaps a little rude sometimes, but really, he’s so kind and so caring and he just knows exactly how to make Phil smile or laugh.

And he trusted Phil with his deepest, darkest secret that he never wished to tell absolutely anyone besides his family or the people who absolutely needed to know. He trusted Phil enough to tell him that important piece of information.

And yet, what did Phil do? He completely demolished that all because he said something completely fucking ignorant. And he can’t take that back. He can’t go back in time and change what he said, despite how much he desperately wants to.

He was so fucking stupid and so fucking ignorant, and yes, he’s aware that his mother is right next to him and that she would hit him right upside the head if she heard him say those things out loud, but he doesn’t care. He’s a fucking idiot.

“Oh, Phil, you can’t just keep this to yourself. It’s only going to harm you more if you don’t tell anyone.”

Phil tries to form the words “but I don’t want to”, but only a squeaky noise sounds.

Kathryn sighs. For a few brief moments, she continues to run her hands through Phil’s hair and rub his back, but soon, she stops, yet she doesn’t get up from the bed. Phil doesn’t turn around to see what she’s doing; he keeps his head faced towards the wall, his eyes closed tightly and his fringe falling in his face.

Soon, he hears her tapping on a screen of some kind. Furrowing his eyebrows, Phil listens closely; she stops soon, and then Phil can hear the faint sound of a phone ringing, followed by someone saying “hello”.

“Hi, Louise, this is Kathryn,” Phil’s mum says into the phone as she places a free hand on her son’s shoulder. Phil audibly groans and wishes he could curl himself out of existence. “Um…this might sound quite odd, and I know you’re probably very busy right now with family, but Phil has…he’s seemed to gotten himself into a rut, and he won’t leave his bed, and I was wondering if you could come over here and perhaps try and coax him out? We’re quite worried for him.”

Phil can hear Louise on the other end say something, and Phil can hear his mum say “uh-huh” as Louise speaks. Phil literally takes his duvet and throws it over his head so he couldn’t hear it as well, though, obviously, it doesn’t work that well. Kathryn just continues to rub his shoulder lovingly.

“Alright, thank you, dear. We’ll expect you over in ‘round five minutes, then. Thank you, Louise! Love you!” Kathryn says. Louise gives a brief goodbye as well, and then Kathryn hangs up the phone. She pats the side of his head. “She’ll be here soon, love.”

She kisses where his forehead would be and gets up from her spot, leaving Phil’s bedroom door wide open for when Louise would be arriving.

It felt like only five seconds had passed, but soon enough, Louise was stepping into Phil’s doorway, seeing his distressed state.

“Philip Michael Lester,” she says, sounding slightly harsh while also being quite gentle with her tone, if that was even possible, “what have you done to yourself?”

“Leave me alone, Lou,” Phil replies, speaking for the first time that day. His voice was groggy and cracked slightly, which he normally would’ve laughed at, but didn’t this time.

“Nope; the great and almighty Kathryn Lester has hired me to get you out of bed. I’m to do her will. Now, what are you doing being in bed all day?”

“Lou, please.”

“Philip, this is even worse than over the summer with Charlie.”

This is a very familiar situation to the two of them. Over the summer, if Phil was having a bad day after his breakup with Charlie, Louise would come over and drag him out of bed and go do something together. Yeah, most of the time right after Phil would just return to his bedroom, but it worked for a good amount of the attempts.

This just feels different somehow. He can’t quite explain it; it’s like there is an even bigger pit in his chest, more guilt weighing on his shoulders. Just far more pain in general.

“Louise-“

Louise comes over to his bed side and rips the duvet off of his head. Before Phil can protest, she takes his arms and pulls him forward so he’s sitting up. “I’m not leaving here until you tell me what’s wrong,” she says sternly, still holding onto his arms.

“Lou, I feel nauseous; let me go.”

“See, this is already far worse than over the summer,” Louise says, moving away from Phil, dropping his arms from her grasp. She kneels down beside him on the bed, and Phil pulls his covers back up to his chest, trying to allow his sick stomach to settle as he sits back, trying to find a comfortable position. “What’s going on? You’ve been so distant lately. We’re all really worried about you.”

“I’m fine, Lou.”

“That’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one,” Louise says, tilting her head to the side. “You know I don’t believe you at all when you say that. You literally look like you’re about to burst into tears right now.”

Phil looks down at his lap, trying to avoid her gaze.

“Phil, come on. You look like an absolute wreck. What’s going on? I can try and help you. You’re still my best friend, even if we haven’t spoken in forever.”

Of course Louise just knows exactly how to hit Phil right in the heart. Phil starts sniffling as he feels tears begin to drip down his cheeks. He’s never cried in front of Louise; not even after his breakup with Charlie. He didn’t cry then; there was nothing to cry about. This…this is different.  

He lays down the story for her. He tells her everything, from the beginning, going over things she already knew, but adding more detail to them. He tells her about Dan’s cancer; he knows Dan didn’t want people to know, and he knows he promised himself that he wouldn’t tell anyone. But it’s not like Phil has anyone else that he can tell besides his best friend and his parents. And it’s not like Dan is going to be talking to him anyway.

He tells Louise what happened only a few days ago. Even his parents still have no idea about it; he made it home from the hospital before they returned from their dinner, and what he ended up doing was taking a thirty-thousand-hour shower before lying in bed with Radiohead playing in the background.

He tells her everything. And by the end of it all, he’s sobbing and Louise is holding him, patting his back and holding him close to her chest, allowing him to cry into her shoulder. She rocks him back and forth to comfort him. They sit there for so long, for so, so, so, _so_ long that Phil can’t fully comprehend it.

But Louise pulls back after a bit and brushes Phil’s fringe out of his face. “I’m so sorry,” she says.

Phil shakes his head. “I was an idiot.”

“It was all a misunderstanding.”

Phil slumps his shoulders. “That’s what everyone says. But it’s a misunderstanding that cost me Dan.” He sniffles for a few seconds and looks down at his comforter. He breathes deeply, and Louise runs her hands up and down his arms to warm him up. “I lost him, Lou. He doesn’t want to be around me anymore.”

“You don’t know that, Phil,” Louise responds, getting her face close to his. “He’s just…going through a lot, both emotionally, but also psychologically and physically. He just needs some time. You two will find a way to connect again, and you’ll find the right way to apologize. You just need some time. Time will help you.”

Phil nods his head lowly, not sure what to say in response. As much as he knows she’s right, he doesn’t want to wait to apologize. He wants to do it now, so he and Dan can go back to how they normally were. Maybe without the tutoring part of it. Maybe just with the normal relationship. The one where they were able to laugh and joke and make fun of each other without getting offended. The parts where they went to the play, went ice-skating, went to parties together, went star-gazing, those kinds of things. The good parts where they were themselves.

That’s what Phil wants again. He doesn’t give a fuck about the tutoring. He only enjoyed it because Dan was there. Dan was the one who made it bearable for him. Dan was the one who made it easy for him.

Dan was the one who just…just brightened up Phil’s day. There was never a moment when Phil was going to see Dan that he wasn’t excited. He got the butterflies in his stomach whenever he saw him, and seeing him and speaking to him always just made his chest flutter with anticipation.

There was something about him that Phil was always drawn to. Phil constantly wants to be around him.

But because Phil was stupid and made a mistake, he doesn’t feel like he can do that anymore. Dan hates him. Dan doesn’t wat to be around him anymore. And it’s all his fault.

 “Lou?” Phil asks quietly.

“Yeah?”

“…I think I love him,” he says without even thinking. Without even fully processing the words that have just escaped his mouth.

_I think I love him._

_I think I love him._

_I think I love him_.

Louise pauses.

“Lou?” he asks after a few seconds, filled with so much anxiety.

“…I think you do, too.”


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

The first of December came quickly – far quicker than Phil can say he wanted it to.

Actually, if he could’ve chosen it, he would’ve just removed the day from the calendar entirely.

He had the thought of trying to convince to his mum that he wasn’t feeling well and should be able to stay home, but considering he’d gotten a lot better and felt slightly more like his normal self after his conversation with Louise over fall break, she wasn’t going to be convinced.

And it’s not like he couldn’t just not go and then completely forget that this assignment was supposed to be turned in today. If he didn’t go to school, they would take his assignment the next day instead. Just avoiding going to school wasn’t going to do anything at all. He was still going to have to turn it in, or be expected to do so.

So, he begrudgingly made his way to school that crisp, chilly morning, his uniform haphazardly thrown on and his backpack filled with his textbooks and binders, one of which containing the essay and the signatures for Mr. Simpson’s English class, which, unfortunately, was his first period.

He went through the motions: dropped off his things in his locker, got the stuff he needed, walked a few laps around the school so he looked like he fit in, stopped and talked with Louise and PJ, and together, the three of them walked to class, getting to their seats right as the warning bell went off.

There were the morning announcements over the intercom, which no one paid attention to, as everyone was getting their things ready or were talking to their friends. Mr. Simpson sat at his desk, typing away on his computer, even he not even listening to the announcements.

Phil sighs as he opens up his folder for this class, seeing the paper he had written just a few nights ago, when he had some free time after completing all his other homework. It’s not his best work - he bull-shitted his way through the entire two-to-three-page essay, saying that tutoring had taught him humility and taught him leadership skills or some other crap like that. Stuff that doesn’t even apply to Phil’s experience, considering what he learned from tutoring is that he’s a fucking idiot.

He stares at it, reading through the essay slowly. It hurts for some reason to read all this; it’s not all true. He kept saying “this service project” or “my service hours” or “this service opportunity”. That’s not what it was. Dan wasn’t some service project to him. He wasn’t just a piece of an assignment for this stupid class.

Dan became his friend, a _best_ friend if you will. He wasn’t a piece of an assignment. He was his friend, the person he could laugh with, the person he shared things with, the person who could make him smile. Yeah, they had only really known each other for a short amount of time, but Phil feels like they grew quite close and became attached during that time.

Phil was always wanting and waiting to be with him, whether it was just for studying or to go out and get Shakeaway or play video games or to do one of those things that Dan felt would make him feel more like a real teenager or whatever. No matter what it was, if Dan was involved, Phil would get excited. He just longed to be around him all the time.

He doesn’t know if it’s just this weird connection they have or what, but still, even now, when Dan hates his fucking guts, he just wants to be with him.

There’s no way in hell Phil can just treat Dan like he was an assignment or some project for him so he can get a grade. There’s no way he can say that. It’s not true in any way, shape, or form. He can’t say it. He can’t.

Right as he thinks this in his head, Mr. Simpson gets up from his seat, as the morning announcements had concluded. He walks over to the podium situated at the front of the classroom and clears his throat as he flips open his grade-book. He hastily looks up and down the rows, seeing who is absent; only two people are, and he marks them down as such, and then closes his book, meaning class is about to begin officially.

“Alright, class; today is the day we’ve all been waiting for, isn’t it?” he jokes. A few people laugh, but Phil can’t bring himself to do so; he’s still so focused on his paper, which is still in his hand. “In case you’ve forgotten, today is the day your service projects are due. This project, as I mentioned at the beginning of the year, involved you completing ten hours of service of any kind, and you were to write a two-to-three-page essay on your experience helping out those in need.”

“In need” is not a phrase Phil feels fits who Dan is; Dan definitely is _not_ in need. Honestly, Dan easily could’ve finished his homework all on his own, without Phil’s help; all he “needed” was for Phil to bring him his homework and tell him when things were due. Everything else, Dan was perfectly capable of completing on his own. He was _not_ “someone in need”. That almost makes him sound lesser than who he is, and Phil doesn’t agree with that at all.

“I hope you all had a pleasant experience with your service project and that it encourages you to do more in the future.”

Phil doesn’t want to tutor anyone ever again, if he’s being frank. There is no way. Yeah, he’ll do service projects every now and again, he’s sure, but there’s no way he could go through tutoring someone again. That’s not something he would consider for the future. He’s just not good at it. The only reason he was able to make it through it was because Dan made it easy for him. Dan was the one who made it bearable. Dan was the one who made Phil look forward to doing it. Phil isn’t sure if anyone else could even come close to doing what Dan did for him with this.

He knows he might be being irrational, but it’s all he can think about now. There’s no way he would’ve made it through this if it hadn’t been for Dan.

“And now I will be taking your essays from you now, and I will hopefully have them all graded over the weekend,” Mr. Simspon says, starting on the opposite side of the classroom to where Phil is, picking up everyone’s papers and signature sheets.

Phil can’t do this. He can’t hand in this paper, with all this stuff being a lie. He doesn’t feel right about turning it in, knowing what he did to Dan.

This, this paper right there in his hand, is the reason why Dan is so mad at him. This, this assignment that literally meant _nothing_ to Phil, is what cost him his friendship with him.

He can’t turn it in knowing that. He can’t; he would feel so goddamn guilty knowing he got a _grade_ from Dan. It doesn’t settle right on his mind or on his chest. He can’t do this.

So, without even thinking about it, he takes the paper under his desk and tears it straight down the middle, completely ruining it.

Caspar, who sits right beside Phil, turns and looks at him with furrowed eyebrows. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks quietly, looking down at the paper.

Louise, who is on the other side of Phil, looks as well. Her eyes widen when she sees Phil continuing to tear apart the essay, not even doing it in proper lines; he just tears wherever he deems necessary. He doesn’t want any word of this essay to be able to be read. It’s all a complete lie.

He gets up from his seat and dumps the sheets of paper into the bin, Mr. Simpson not even noticing what he’s doing, as he’s talking to someone about their essay. During this time as well, Phil takes the sheets with the signatures for the Student Success Center as well as the one for this class, and he tears them up as well, not even bothering to do it underneath his desk. He’s sure the people watching him are probably thinking he’s gone completely and utterly insane, but he doesn’t care. He can’t turn in this assignment. He can’t bring himself to stoop so low.

He dumps them in the bin as well, and then he goes back to his seat, closes his binder, and folds his hands neatly on his desk. Caspar is still staring at him, his jaw dropped to the floor, but Phil acts as though he doesn’t see it; he keeps his face on his desk, planted on his folded hands.

A few minutes later, Mr. Simpson approaches Phil’s desk. Phil doesn’t look up at him.

“Your paper, Philip?” he asks, holding his hand out.

Phil shakes his head. “I don’t have it,” he says simply.

Mr. Simpson pauses for a few seconds. “You...you don’t have it?”

Phil shakes his head again. He looks up at Mr. Simpson to see him giving a very confused expression. “Nope,” he responds.

“Your essay? Do you need to print it off still?”

“No; I didn’t do it.”

“You...you didn’t do it?”

“No.”

Mr. Simpson looks even more confused, as does the rest of the class. “Philip, you were one of the people to first get the service hours completed.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Just the paper, or the signatures as well?”

“I didn’t do the service project,” Phil replies. “I didn’t do it at all. I’ll take the zero.”

“Philip, I’m very confused; you did the service hours; you told me during the last meet-”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Simpson, but I didn’t complete the assignment at all. Please give me the zero.”

Mr. Simpson gawks at Phil, still looking completely and utterly confused at the whole situation. Louise and Caspar both also have similar expressions on their faces. Phil merely turns back to his desk and picks up a pencil, twirling it between his fingers.

After a few moments of silence, Mr. Simpson just nods his head. “You will get a zero, Philip,” he says, moving to the desk in front of him to pick up their paper.

Instead of freaking out or wanting to cry like he normally would’ve, Phil just smiles and lets out a sigh of relief.

Caspar shakes his head at Phil’s reaction. “You’re fucking weird, man.”

\---------------------------

After class, Phil stands at his locker alone, putting his book and binder away and grabbing the materials he needs for his other classes. He hears someone call his name from somewhere further down the hall, and as he closes the door of his locker, he turns and sees the lady from the Student Success Center walking up to him.

“Yes?” he asks, adjusting the strap on his backpack.

“Do you have the signatures for your studying with Daniel Howell? You needed to have had them turned in by today, so that way we can confirm that-”

“I don’t have them,” Phil replies, completely interrupting her.

Just as with Mr. Simpson, she looks completely confused. “What?”

“I don’t have the signatures,” Phil repeats.

“Wh...why not?”

Phil shrugs, and he doesn’t give a verbal answer. He doesn’t feel he needs to give one.

“Philip, we informed you when you started that you needed to get signatures from his mother for every time you met and studied; if you can’t turn them in, you can’t be Daniel’s tutor anymore.”

To the woman’s surprise, Phil nods his head. “Alright.”

“And you won’t be allowed to tutor anyone else because you failed to do this.”

He nods his head again. “Cool.”

“And...and we’ll need to get him a new tutor,” she adds, as if that’s also going to change Phil’s mind.

“Alright,” he says.

She just looks completely lost for words.

“Because, in my opinion, Dan doesn’t even need a tutor; he’s way smarter than you guys realize. All he really needs is someone to give him the homework and assignments. He can do just fine on his own.” He smiles.

She still is lost for words.

“But if you do decide to give him a new tutor, just know he deserves someone a lot better than me,” he says. With a final smile and nod of his head, he proudly turns around on his heel and walks away, the lady just looking completely and utterly confused.


	25. Chapter Twenty-Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it's Thanksgiving here in America, and bc i'm such a nice person (lol not really considering how many people i've unconsciously been murdering bc of this fic), I'll be posting TWO chapters today :)

The rest of the semester flew by, almost without a chance for Phil to catch a breath. Finals sneaked up on him, and soon all his time was spent studying in his bedroom, downing cups of coffee into the late hours of the night as he studied his flash cards and wrote his final essays.

And the actual exams themselves went just fine; he passed them all, getting good marks on all of them, even the ones he was so sure he was going to fail. All of his final grades for the classes were fair as well...except his English Composition class, which his grade had magically dropped to almost a C (but still luckily at a B minus, which was honestly good enough for Phil).

But, the second winter break started, instead of going back to his normal self and hanging out with his friends nearly every day or starting up his holiday job at the bookshop his mum’s friends own, Phil returned back to his spending every waking hour curled up in his bedroom watching YouTube or playing video games he’s already played approximately ten billion times before.

While he might seem more enthusiastic on the outside most of the time, he is still definitely struggling with the whole situation with Dan. It’s extremely hard on him, for obvious reasons.

Even though he did the “right thing” by bombing his English assignment and quitting tutoring, there was still a big hole in his chest that he needed to fill – this pain that was left from all the things he did to Dan. He knows that, his family knows that, and Louise knows that.

Everyone is aware that Phil is still struggling with not knowing exactly what Dan is up to, not knowing how his treatments have been going, whatever else. He’s completely unaware, still stuck in the mindset that Dan never wants to talk to him again.

Dan hasn’t tried to contact him, and Phil hasn’t tried to contact him either. They’re just distant, not having contacted since their fight back in November.

And now, Christmas is right around the corner, and they haven’t spoken in around a month.  

_“Phil, I feel like you’ve waited long enough; you need to talk to Dan again,” Louise told Phil over the phone one evening, three days into the break, Christmas Eve the following day. “It’s been nearly a month, and you’re still absolutely miserable without him.”_

_“Louise, I don’t think he wants to talk to me. I think he’s had enough of me in his life.”_

_“See, you keep telling yourself this, but I don’t believe it for one second; you were both completely infatuated with each other. There’s no way that just because of this, he’d want to forget you ever existed. Not after all that time you two spent together.”_

_“I’m not saying he wants to forget I ever existed, but I’m sure he would just prefer to not be around me. I hurt him too much.”_

_“Philip Michael Lester, you are a complete dumbass.” She sighed. “Okay, here: this season is all about doing things for other people; why don’t you give Dan something? Give him a present? No one can turn down that.”_

_Phil sighed and looked off to his side, to his open backpack. He saw a little sheet of white paper that Mrs. Howell had given to him all those months ago: the sheet of paper with Dan’s chemo schedule. He got up from his spot on his bed and picked it up, looking over it._

_His next chemo was scheduled for tomorrow, the 24th of December._

_That would be absolutely miserable, being in the hospital on Christmas Eve for chemotherapy instead of being home, with family, drinking hot coco while watching classic Christmas films that you’ve probably seen five billion times already during the season._

_Being wrapped up in warm blankets with the Christmas tree lit up, the stockings hanging above the fireplace, and the sounds of classic Christmas music filling the room. Little figurine sets that your grandparents gifted you laid across the mantel and on the coffee table, and cookies and milk laid out for Santa, even though you were told ten years ago that Santa isn’t real._

_But the atmosphere of Christmas is there, and it fills your heart with comfort. You can’t really get that when you’re in a hospital._

_Suddenly, without warning, an idea popped into Phil’s head._

_“Lou, pick me up tomorrow. I have an idea.”_

And, that next morning, bright and early, Louise stopped by and picked up Phil, this being the first time Phil has left the house since finals.

“Where in the world am I taking you to?” Louise asks him as she pulls out of the driveway and onto the street. She’s the oldest one out of their friend group, and she has already gotten her license and is able to drive.

“To the shop,” Phil says, a child-like excitement in his eyes.

Louise furrows her eyebrows, but she keeps her eyes on the road. “Okay…for what?” she asks.

Phil smiles as he presses the “on” button on the radio, a local radio station that plays Christmas music coming on, playing through the speakers. “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” is on, and Phil taps along to it on his knee.

“For Christmas decorations,” he answers.

“For Dan?”

Phil nods his head. “We’re going to decorate his room for the holiday,” he says. “He has chemo today at ten, so it’s perfect,” he says, gesturing to the clock, which reads 8:42 in the morning, far earlier than Phil is used to waking up during break. But he hasn’t necessarily been on a good sleeping schedule since this whole thing started. “We can go into his room and decorate it while he’s in treatment, and it’ll be a nice surprise. And maybe we can get him some other presents or something while we’re there.”

“And how are you planning on paying for this? You haven’t done your holiday season job this year,” Louise reminds him.

“I’ve got some allowance money saved up,” Phil replies. “It was originally meant to be for a car when I can get my license, but we both know I’m going to screw up the exams and not get it, and also, I basically bike myself everywhere.”

“And it’s Christmas Eve; how are we going to make it through standing through the lines of people buying last-minute presents?”

“We have each other for company!”

Louise doesn’t necessarily look too excited about that proposition. “And how are we going to lug all this stuff into the hospital?”

Phil smiles cheekily at her. “That’s why I have you to help me,” he says, hitting her shoulder affectionately. “It was all your idea for me to do something for Dan!”

Louise rolls her eyes and reaches over, turning up the volume on the stereo so it is louder. “You’re buying me a coffee because of all this hard work you’re making me do.”

“Love you, too, Lou!”

\---------------------------------------

They went to a nearby shop where they knew they would find loads of Christmas decorations. Luckily, because it was incredibly late in the season, everything was marked down quite a bit in price, so Phil didn’t end up spending too-too much on what he got.

He got Dan a mini Christmas tree, a set of black baubles (because he knows Dan would appreciate both the cohesiveness of the decorations on the tree and because they were black, his favorite color), some hanging lights, a star to put on the tree, a stocking, and a few other little decorations that Phil thought would be appropriate.

He also got Dan a few winter hats, as Dan would hopefully appreciate it due to his recent hair loss situation, and he also got him some hot coco mixes and some other little pieces of candy to put in his stocking. And, he couldn’t help himself but to buy about a hundred thousand packs of little, travel-sized hand sanitizers so that he doesn’t have to carry around a big bottle of it everywhere.

And, of course, Phil couldn’t walk through the ugly Christmas sweater rack without having to pick up one for him and one for Dan, both of them _Star Wars_ themed.

They loaded up Louise’s car with all their Christmas decorations, and they headed off on their way to the hospital to start setting up Dan’s room. Phil shook with nerves and anxiety the entire car ride there, not able to keep his excitement and nerves to himself.

He was excited because he felt like this would be something that Dan would like, but he was nervous that, even though Dan might like it, he might not want to talk to Phil or listen to him or anything. It’s been a whole month – Phil doesn’t know if he’s recovered in that time, if he’s thought about Phil, or whatever.

But Phil just wants to try and get on better terms again. He misses Dan so much that words cannot fully explain it. He misses his best friend and he wants to have him back in his life again.

And maybe this could be a step towards that.

Louise and Phil definitely looked quite strange as they walked into the hospital carrying a load of Christmas decorations in their bags, but they managed to get Dan’s room number from the receptionist, the same room that Dan had been in when they last spoke, and they made it up there with no problem.

Dan wasn’t in the room, as the clock had just struck 10:30 when they made it up there, meaning Dan was still in therapy. So, hastily, they put together the Christmas tree, hung up the lights, the stocking, the wreath, the garland, and whatever else they had managed to buy. They laid his presents under the tree, they set up little decorations on the windowsill, and they placed the baubles and the star on the tree, all of this done within half-an-hour.

Phil turned the tele in the room to the fireplace loop channel, and he played Christmas music softly from his phone once they were done. He looks around at the room and all the things he and Louise had set up. It looked beautiful; definitely an improvement to how it had been previously, with all the bare walls and the medical equipment being the first thing you look at.

The Christmas decorations definitely gave the room a bit more of a homely feel, and Phil was certainly proud of that.

“I think we’ve done good today, Philip,” Louise says, also looking around at all the things they’ve set up. “I think we’ve done good.”

“So do I,” Phil agrees, stepping close to Louise. “Thank you so much for putting up with me today. I know you probably wanted to spend it with your family, but…thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure,” she says. “And speaking of family, I should probably get going; I promised I would help make Christmas Eve dinner, and I’m sure my mum is going crazy looking for me.” She looks over Phil curiously. “Are you going to be fine here by yourself?”

Phil nods his head. “I’ll take the bus home when I’m going to leave.”

“…that’s not exactly what I meant,” Louise says softly. “I mean…like, with Dan.”

Phil lets out a long sigh as he continues to look at the decorations, the flashing lights blinking at him and the star on top of the tree glistening. He smiles, a warm feeling in his chest settling comfortably.

“Yeah,” he replies simply.

Louise raises an eyebrow. “’Yeah’?”

Phil nods, turning back to his friend. “Yeah,” he repeats.

Louise smiles warmly at him and wraps her arms around him, Phil reciprocating it straight away. “I’m proud of you, Phil,” she says into his chest.

“Thank you,” Phil responds, placing his chin on top of her head.

She pulls away and pats his cheek lovingly, as well as placing a kiss there. “Happy Christmas, Phil.”

“Happy Christmas, Louise.”

She smiles once more before she turns around, grabbing her keys and her phone from Dan’s bed, and she makes her way out into the hallway, preparing to go home and celebrate with her family.

Phil smiles, and he lets out a long, deep breath as he takes one more look around the room. He’s proud of it.

He slips on his new ugly Christmas jumper over the shirt he was already wearing, smoothing it out with his hands. He fixes his hair, making sure it looks nice, and he keeps himself busy by trying to slow his breathing down.

Eventually, he finds himself sitting at the foot of the tree, so he is facing the door leading into the room. He turns up the Christmas music on his phone and listens to it, humming along and tapping to the beats with his hands as he anticipates Dan’s arrival, his nerves certainly getting the best of him.

But he’s fine. He’s fine; everything is going to work out. Everything is going to be just fine.


	26. Chapter Twenty-Six

An hour passed of Phil mindlessly playing on his phone and fiddling with the Christmas decorations before there was any sound of someone walking down the hallway of this hospital room.

A nurse came into the doorway, helping out the basically lifeless Dan, whose head was hung low, but his hand grasping the IV pole, which meant he was definitely awake, but just probably on the verge of falling asleep.

The nurse seems surprised when she sees Phil sitting in front of a load of Christmas decorations situated in the corner of the hospital room. She gestures to the tree. “Did you do this?” she asks, her voice quiet, but a smile forming on her face.

Phil nods his head proudly. “Yeah; me and my friend did it while Dan was in chemo,” he responds.

“That’s wonderful,” she says. “Dan’s parents and brother have been away for the past week on holiday.” Phil instantly remembers Dan telling him about this a few months ago; he was hoping that he would be better by the time Christmas rolled around so he could go on it, as his family had been talking about cancelling it.

Phil could tell that he had been excited about it; they had to cancel their summer holiday because Dan got ill, so he was excited that he still had this trip to go on. But because he got so sick earlier in November and because his chemo treatments haven’t necessarily been working as well…

“They had been planning it for the longest time,” the nurse continues to explain, leading Dan into the room slowly, bringing him over to the bed. “They were going to cancel it, since Dan is sick and has been feeling especially unwell these past few weeks, but Dan convinced them to go. So, it’s nice that he’s got this now.” She looks over at Phil again. “You’re his friend, right?”

“Phil,” he says, nodding his head.

The nurse smiles as she brings Dan to the bed, turning him around slowly, then gently pushing him down by the shoulders so he is seated on the bed. “He’s been asking about you a lot,” she says.

Phil instantly feels his heart skip a beat, and he’s sure his face is starting to turn a pale pink. “Really?” he asks, his voice instantly becoming shakier and less confident than it had been just a few moments prior.

But what does she mean by Dan has been “asking about him”? Probably just asking if he’s come in so he can tell him to leave him alone. Just making sure that he doesn’t come in to hurt him again. Phil doesn’t blame him, really; he has perfect reas-

“He’s been wondering if you’ve been coming in. He seems like he’s really been wanting to see you,” the nurse interrupts Phil’s thoughts, which makes Phil’s heart race even more. “He’s really been in a bad mood ever since he started asking. He’s been seeming pretty down.”

Phil feels a pang of guilt in his chest. “Oh,” he says quietly. He clears his throat as she watches the nurse help Dan lie down on his bed, his head resting on the pillow.

Dan’s eyes are closed, but Phil is pretty sure he’s still awake, just probably very tired and feeling very ill. His bags under his eyes are prominent, his hair is the fluffiest Phil has ever seen it, though it still looks incredibly thin, and there are even more bald spots, and he certainly looks skinner; he must not be eating well or be able to keep his food down. It breaks Phil’s heart seeing him like this; he looks like he’s been struggling.

“Um…y-yeah…we kind of stopped talking briefly,” Phil explains.

The nurse nods her head. “Well, you’re here now,” she says with a kind smile as she adjusts Dan’s IV pole. “I’m sure he will appreciate it. But, he’s just had chemo, so he’ll be out of it for a bit; probably a few hours. If you would rather go home for a bit to be with family, I’m sure by the time you come back, Dan will be awake.”

Phil thinks about it. He didn’t tell his mum this morning where he was going, and they’re going to have their little Christmas dinner tonight, which Phil promised he would help make the mince pies for, but looking at Dan, who was originally going to be spending the day alone…it breaks Phil’s heart right in half. He doesn’t deserve to spend the day alone, even when he’s fast asleep after having treatment. He _shouldn’t_ be alone.

But he’s so selfless and of course had to tell his parents and brother that they could still go on their Christmas holiday. Of _course_ he did. That’s just the kind of person he is; even if it’ll mean he’ll have a bit worse of a Christmas, at least his parents and brother are out having fun.

“I, uh…I think I’ll hang around here,” Phil replies.

“You sure? He could be out for a long time, maybe even until visiting hours are closed.”

Phil nods his head. “I’m sure,” he says. “I’d be more than happy to keep Dan company.”

“Alright,” the nurse smiles. “I’m sure Dan will really appreciate that.” She checks Dan to make sure his IV is alright, and he brings the covers up to his chest so he can keep warm.

Phil nods his head, looking over at Dan, seeing his tired state. He smiles at him, thinking to himself that hopefully he’s doing the right thing.

\-------------------------------------

“Phil? Phil, is that you? Wake up.”

Phil groans as he shifts in the guest chair he seated himself in what felt like only five minutes ago. But he feels so tired, and he would much rather just stay asleep.

“Phil, wake up.”

“Mmm…five more minutes.”

“Phil, for God’s sake, wake up.”

Phil blinks open his eyes, despite how much he didn’t want to. His vision is fuzzy at first, probably partially due to the fact that he fell asleep with his contact lenses in, but once his vision has gone back to normal, he realizes he is still in the hospital room, the lights having gone dimmer, but the Christmas lights still blinking their colorful shines against the bare, boring walls.

He looks around the room, and his eyes fall upon Dan, who is laid in his bed, but instead of how he had been situated earlier, before Phil somehow ended up falling asleep, he was awake, seated up in his bed, a tray of Christmas-dinner-like foods (“like” as in they look like plastic, but Phil would never say that to someone who works at the hospital for fear of hurting their feelings) situated on his lap.

“Dan?” he asks tiredly.

Dan snickers. “Yeah, it’s me,” he says, definitely not sounding as harsh as he did when Phil last visited.

“What time is it?”

“’Round five, mate,” he answers. “It’s dinner time.”

Phil had somehow managed to fall asleep for that long? Holy crap, his mum must be going insane, wondering where he is. He is tempted to pull out his phone and look at probably the hundreds of messages Kathryn and Nigel have left him, but he restrains himself.

“What’re you doing here?” Dan asks when Phil hasn’t said anything else.

Phil rubs his eyes with the backs of his hands and lets out a yawn. “It’s Christmas Eve,” he answers, his voice rough from how long he had been asleep.

“And?” Dan asks confusedly. “Shouldn’t you be…you know…with your family?”

Phil yawns again. “Figured you might want some company.”

Dan blinks a few times, and then looks over at the decorations that Phil had set up. Some of the hanging lights were drooping, as he and Louise had failed to find any of those hooks that you can stick on the wall to hang up decorations, so they ended up using some tape that Louise for whatever reason had in her purse. Clearly it wasn’t working out as well as they had hoped it would.

“Did you…?”

Phil nods his head and runs a hand through his hair. “It was quite boring in here; figured a little Christmas cheer would do you some good…um…if-if you like it, of course.” He clears his throat and sits up in his seat. He knows he needs to talk to Dan, and considering Dan has yet to yell or scream at him, he figured now would be the best time to do it.

He lets out a deep breath and folds his hands. “Listen…Dan, I made a mistake,” he says. “I know I did. I…I shouldn’t have told your mum that I was tutoring you for an assignment for class. I shouldn’t have worded it like that. And I should have told you about the assignment in the first place. Or I shouldn’t have even considered using tutoring you as a part of the assignment, but I was stupid and figured it would be okay. I didn’t realize how much it would hurt you-“

“Phil.”

“-to say that this was all an assignment. Because it wasn’t. When we started talking and everything, I realized that…you know…you’re my friend, and I care about you, and I don’t want to say that me helping you was all for some stupid project.”

Phil.”

“You weren’t just some project to me. You became one of my best friends, and…and I treated you like crap when I said that, and I’m so, so, so sorry for that. I…I realized that, that I don’t want to treat you like you’re just some assignment, so I dropped the assignment and got a zero for it-“

Dan’s shoulders slump and his eyes widen. “Phil, no, you didn’t-“

“But it’s fine, I don’t care about that; I wasn’t going to let you be treated like that or think that I think of you like that. Because you’re not that. You’re my best friend, even though I know you probably hate my guts-“

“Philip.”

“-and you probably never want to see me again, but…just know that I care about you and that I never meant-“

“Philip Michael Lester, for fuck’s sake, stop apologizing,” Dan says sternly, causing Phil to sit further back in his seat in shock, afraid that he’s going to yell at him and tell him that his apology is invalid and that there’s no way in hell he would ever forgive him for that.

But, instead, Dan’s facial expression softens, and his shoulders slump to a more relaxed position, much to Phil’s surprise. “Phil, for God’s sake, I was an idiot, too,” he says. “I took it way too personally, and I didn’t even bother to listen to your side of the story. I pushed you away, and that’s why we didn’t talk for an entire month; you thought I was going to fucking murder you or something. But the entire time that we weren’t talking, I was constantly regretting everything I had said to you. I was a fucking moron for not listening to you, and I’m sorry for that.”

“But you had reason to-“

“There’s never any justifiable reason for not listening to someone’s side of the story,” Dan says, “and I was a fucking idiot and didn’t listen. I thought you never wanted to talk to me again because I was such a fucking dick to you, and I’m sorry, Phil. I was so fucking rude to you when you didn’t deserve it. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Phil shakes his head, and he can’t help the small smile that forms on his face. “It happens,” he replies quietly, but just loud enough for him to hear.

Dan gives him the biggest smile ever, and he holds out his arms widely. “Come give me a hug, you fucking dingbat,” he says, his voice having its little laughter return to it.

Phil doesn’t hesitate to get up and walk over to Dan. Careful to avoid his IV, Phil pulls him into a warm hug, holding Dan closely to his chest. He feels the sparks spread through his arms and legs as Dan holds him securely.

But, to Phil’s dismay, Dan is the one to pull away first, but he does give Phil a warm smile when he does.

“So…are we good?” Phil asks, knowing full-well how desperate he sounds.

Dan laughs. “We’re good,” he answers.

“No more secrets and no more being idiots?”

“I’m not too sure we’ll be good at the latter,” Dan responds, laughing. “But, yeah, no more secrets, and we’ll try our hardest not to be idiots.”

Phil holds out his pinkie finger. Dan gives him a confused look, and Phil just continues to hold out his pinkie even more. “Come on, Howell; pinkie promises are the highest form of commitment.”

“You fucking dork,” Dan says as he reaches forward and locks his pinkie around Phil’s. They hold it tightly for a few moments, before they release, laughing like idiots.

After this, Phil proceeds to give Dan his presents, Dan laughing and telling Phil that there was no reason why he should’ve gotten him Christmas presents based on how Dan acted towards him during fall break, but, of course, Phil insisted that Dan take the presents.

Dan of course loved the sweater, and he told Phil that the second they took his IV out, he would put it on over his hospital gown. He had the IV because he was still quite sick from earlier, and his white blood cell count has been getting lower; he hasn’t had another seizure, though, thank goodness, as they managed to fix a majority of the problem with the cancer cells getting into his brain, so they’re not worried about that anymore.

He laughed loudly when Phil presented him with the travel-sized hand sanitizer, telling him he would definitely use them all once he got out of the hospital.

“I swear I’ll probably go through one each day,” he told Phil, looking at the sizes of all of them.

“But at least now you won’t look like a weirdo with a giant bottle in your water bottle holder,” Phil noted, and Dan laughed and nodded his head in agreement.

And, of course, he was very excited about the hats. He almost started crying when Phil presented them, as Dan has been struggling with his hair loss for the past few months; he definitely appreciated all of them, and gave Phil another hug after he received them.

“Thank you so much, you fucking spork,” Dan says, holding Phil close to him as they hug.

“It’s no problem,” Phil replies.

Dan sniffles and releases one hand from Phil so he could wipe away his tears. “Really; you made my day approximately ten million times better. Thank you so much.” He smiles against Phil’s shoulder. “But I didn’t get you anything.”

“I don’t need anything,” Phil replies, pulling away to look at him. He stares into Dan’s brown eyes, seeing the gold flecks around the pupil.

Dan smiles back at him. They stare at each other for what feels like hours, just looking into each other’s eyes and smiling.

And then, without even a smidgen of warning, without Phil even thinking about it, their lips are touching.

Phil doesn’t know who initiated it; he can’t process anything about what’s happening besides the feeling of Dan’s lips moving against his, the warm, soft touch sending him into a completely different dimension.

He lifts a hand and cups Dan’s cheek as he begins to kiss back, their lips moving together gently and harmonically, shots of electricity shooting throughout Phil’s body. The butterflies in his stomach are moving rapidly, and he can’t help but smile into the kiss as Dan holds tightly to his shoulder, his other hand reaching up to hold onto the wrist of Phil’s arm that is holding onto his face.

He can’t keep track of how long it is, but their bodies move together so that their chests are touching, as if they could get any closer, and they just hold each other close and kiss each other, relishing in the feeling of it.

Phil can’t even fathom how good it feels; it feels so right, so wonderful, as if two pieces of a puzzle are fitting together perfectly. He feels nervous, excited, and so elated all at the same time, his brain buzzing with all of the emotions.

This feels so much better than whenever he was with Charlie; whenever Charlie kissed him, it was rough, urgent for more, always wanting something more to come from it, as the kiss itself was not enough, was not substantial enough for his wants. This, however: this feels completely different. It’s soft, it’s gentle, yet still passionate and still fulfilling. It’s sweet, it’s wonderful…it’s everything Phil wants with the kiss. It’s amazing. It’s wonderful. It’s what Phil has been waiting for.

He doesn’t know who pulls away first, but when they separate, they rest their foreheads against each other’s, and they smile like complete idiots at each other.

Dan is the first one to speak up.

“If you fucking get me sick from this, I’m going to slap you upside the head.”

Phil chuckles as he leans in once again. “You wouldn’t,” he replies, leaning in close to kiss Dan again.

This was the best Christmas present Phil could’ve ever received. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you're welcome


	27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

Phil ended up staying in Dan’s hospital room until around seven at night, catching up and talking about things that happened while they were gone (Phil told Dan that he had informed both his parents and Louise about his leukemia, which Dan was surprisingly fine with, which was odd, considering how serious he had been about Phil not telling anyone), eventually to just talking about random crap until Dan finally convinced him that he needed to go home and be with his family. And while Phil kept trying to tell him that he was fine and that he didn’t mind staying over, Dan wasn’t having it; he knew Phil needed to be with his family.

But, with this, came the realization that they weren’t going to see each other until after New Years’ Day; Phil was going to be spending Christmas Day at home with his family, but then two days later, they were heading off for a short trip to the Isle of Man to see his grandparents, spending Christmas and New Years’ there.

They were upset, obviously, as they would’ve much rather preferred to be together during the holiday, but it would be fine; they could call and text each other during their time apart.

Dan was going to be in the hospital through New Years’ as well; while he was still ill, he was getting better and would most likely be discharged after his next chemo treatment, which would be on the third of January. It wasn’t that big of a deal to Dan; he was, of course, used to being in a hospital for long durations of time.

Luckily, from what Phil could tell, Dan didn’t quite suffer a lot of the side-effects of the other chemotherapies they’d tried, except for him feeling drained, so hopefully, because of this, they would be able to continue using it, allowing him to finally move onto the second cycle. That would be like an absolute miracle to Dan.

When Phil went home for a late Christmas dinner, his mum halted from giving him a lecture about how, yes, she was happy that he was getting out of the house, but he needs to let her know where he is going and also keep in mind that it was Christmas Eve and that you’re meant to spend it with your family, when she saw his happy face when he came through the front door after heading home on the cold bus, being the only person boarded on it.

“You look so happy,” Kathryn noted. “Not that it’s a bad thing, of course. It’s just…you were so down yesterday.”

Phil shook his head and smiled, not having been able to wipe the smile off his face since…well… _you know_. “Just having a good day, I suppose. Filled with the Christmas spirit.”

Martyn gave him a confused look. “You’re weird, man.”

Phil just shrugged his shoulders as he made himself a plate of Christmas dinner to eat while he and his family watched Christmas films.

And, yes, he might’ve spent most of that time checking his phone under the table to see if Dan responded to his texts, but his family didn’t seem to mind, and his mum didn’t even ask him to stop; Phil figured they all knew something between him and Dan had been worked out.

Dan and Phil didn’t really talk about what happened between them in the hospital room; well, most of the time while Phil was still there they _couldn’t_ speak as, you know…they were kissing and whatever, but they didn’t talk about what it meant or what it made them or if they should tell people, whatever, whatever.

Phil honestly didn’t think they _needed_ to talk about it; it was just kind of assumed. Their first kiss said it all: they both had some kind of romantic feelings for each other. Did that make them a couple? Did that make them boyfriends? Phil wasn’t sure, but he was just glad it happened.

It makes his heart flutter when he thinks about Dan’s chapped lips on his, feeling them moving against his, feeling the corners of his lips turn upwards as he smiles into it, how Dan’s hands just fall naturally onto his shoulders…it’s all just so new and Phil can’t help but grin like a complete lovestruck dork when he thinks about it. He loves it.

He doesn’t think he’s ever felt like this before. Sure, he’s only been in one relationship before, and that one certainly didn’t exactly go well, but he’s never had this feeling where his chest gets warm and butterflies flutter in his stomach when he thinks about someone. He has never felt like this before; it’s a completely new feeling.

And it’s so cheesy, and he’s so aware of that, like this sounds like something straight out of a fan fiction of some kind, but even though it just happened today, he feels something so brand new and so wonderful.

He can’t wait until he and Dan are going to be able to see each other again. He feels like he’s going to go absolutely mental not being able to see him for a week as he spends Christmas and New Years’ with his family, but he can’t wait until they get to see each other again afterwards.

\---------------------------------------

The week between Dan and Phil seeing each other again was absolutely brutal.

The actual Christmas day itself wasn’t bad; Phil got to spend it with his family, lounge in his pyjamas all day, and stuff himself full of pies and cakes that his mum anxiously baked while he was gone yesterday (he feels bad about not telling her where he was, but at least he does get some baked goods out of it).

Dan’s parents were still on their holiday, but Dan texted Phil that his family did Skype him to wish him a Happy Christmas and to tell him that they were going to be home within two days. Phil was tempted to ask his parents if he could make a run over to the hospital to see Dan, and he brought this proposition up to Dan, but Dan called him an idiot and told him to stay home and spend the day with his family. That didn’t stop Phil from continually texting Dan throughout the day.

It was like that for the next day as well, with just lounging lazily around the house and eating immeasurable amounts of food and staying in pyjamas all day. The day after, Phil and his family boarded a plane to go to the Isle of Man; it was also the same day Dan’s parents and brother were coming home from their trip away, so Dan wouldn’t be alone while Phil was away, which made Phil feel a lot better.

The trip to his grandparents’ house was quite fun; they were on a shoreside house, Phil’s grandparents’ winter house, which was quite scenic, but not necessarily the most useful in the world in the dead of winter. So, because of this, Phil spent most of his time indoors, hanging out with his family, having Lester Family Game Night, eating more and more cakes and pies that his grandmum made, and, yes, texting Dan constantly.

 No one told him he was being rude because he was always on his phone; it was almost as if everyone knew, even his grandparents, who had no idea about Dan or anything, that something in Phil’s life had changed. No one asked, no one pushed, and Phil was thankful for that.

It was so new to him, being back with Dan but _also_ with this added element of them being romantically involved, and Phil wanted to keep that to himself and Dan for just a little bit longer; he didn’t want everyone to know, hey, he’s basically in love with Dan and is now technically in a romantic relationship with him; he wants it to be just between him and Dan for now. Not everyone needs to be aware of it.

In time, yes, Phil would love to be able to bring Dan to family dinners or have him be able to have a relationship with his family, as they don’t know each other that well, and Phil would definitely like to change that. But, he’d like to just kind of keep this between him and Dan for a bit longer, and also wait for Dan to get a bit better physically, probably to where he’s not spending months at a time in the hospital.

And, yeah, Phil would like to know Dan’s family a bit better, but Phil is sure it’s going to take a bit longer for Dan to want to tell them anything about this. He isn’t as open with his family with these kinds of things. He doesn’t usually like telling them anything like this, or just anything in _general_ , so Phil knows it’s going to be a bit longer before Dan will tell anything to his family.

And Phil is okay with that; he knows he struggles with that, and he understands; his parents would freak out, thinking Phil was going to make Dan sick all the time or that Dan shouldn’t be dating because he has to go to chemo and treatments all the time and he needs to spend all his time trapped inside a bubble to where he can’t get sick.

And, yeah, Phil doesn’t want Dan to get sick, either, as he knows Dan just feels absolutely miserable when he is, and obviously his cancer doesn’t really help when he does get sick, but Dan’s parents just seem to like the idea of Dan never being able to leave the house or the hospital to make sure he doesn’t get ill _ever_ …it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to Phil; they’re keeping Dan form being able to experience the world all because of this one little thing going on with Dan’s body. It doesn’t make sense to Phil; he should still be able to be himself and be a teenager and whatever. His cancer shouldn’t stop him from being able to do that. His parents just seem to have the opposite idea.

Whatever. What the hell does Phil know?

He knows that, even though he loves spending time with his family and being with them, he wishes this week would go by fast so that he can see Dan soon; how the hell did he make it one month without speaking to him, when now, he can’t even make it through a week? He’s going absolutely mental.

\-----------------------------------

The second Phil made it back from the Isle of Man, he dropped off his suitcase and headed out on his bike in the freezing cold to Shakeaway, got his and Dan’s orders that they always get, and got on his way to the hospital.

He knows that Shakeaway isn’t the best thing in the world to have in the cold winter, but it’s kind of his and Dan’s “thing”, if you will, so he felt like it was necessary.

He hid the shakes underneath his coat as he made his way into the hospital, keeping an extra eye out for anyone who thought anything suspicious of the bulk under his coat.

But, he made it to Dan’s hospital room just fine, without anyone wondering what he was doing or what the hell he had under his coat (or at least that Phil was aware of). The door to the room was opened slightly, and Phil used his back to push it open even more, stepping into the room as he does so.

Dan was seated on the bed, dressed in his hospital gown, but now with the ugly sweater Phil had bought for him over it. The IV pole was pushed off to the side, no wire attaching it to Dan’s wrist. The Christmas decorations were still up, though the lights had been turned off.

Dan smiles widely when he sees Phil walk into the room.

“You’re off IV!” Phil exclaims excitedly.

“You’re back from the Isle of Man!” Dan says in a similarly excited voice. “Wouldn’t you have just gotten back?”

Phil nods his head. “Just got off the plane an hour ago,” he responds. “But, I was having a craving for some sugar,” he slowly opens up his coat, revealing the shakes he had been pressing against his chest, “so I got us some not-so-weatherly appropriate shakes.”

Dan laughs and claps his hands. “My God, Phil, you are a terrible influence: giving me excessive amounts of sugar _and_ sneaking food into the hospital. How dare you.”

Phil chuckles as he hands Dan his cup. “Fat-free frozen yogurt, Malteser’s, and butterscotch for you, good sir,” he says in an overly-exaggerated posh voice.

“You know just what I like,” Dan replies, gladly taking the cup from him. “But first…” He gestures with his pointer finger for Phil to come closer to him. Phil grins widely and does so, walking over to Dan. Dan takes a hold of the collar of his jumper and pulls him down to him, pressing a quick kiss to his lips, Phil not able to contain his smile.

They pull away quickly, but they press their foreheads against each other’s. “Hi,” Dan says in an amused voice, grinning probably the widest Phil has ever seen him smile.

“Hi,” Phil replies before pressing a kiss to Dan’s forehead. “I missed you.”

“I missed you,” Dan says, scooting over on the bed, patting the now open space next to him. “Come, sit, tell me about your trip. Don’t worry; my nurse just came in and checked on me, like, two seconds ago. She won’t be back for a while.”

Phil chuckles and brushes off his coat, dropping it onto a chair that had been pulled up near Dan’s bedside, for what Phil assumed was Dan’s family. Phil, however, takes his seat on Dan’s bed. Before he could even start speaking, Dan takes a hold of Phil’s collar again, and he kisses his lips for the second time. Phil gives him a confused yet happy expression when he pulls away.

“I’m sorry; I just missed you,” he says. “My week was complete rubbish without you.”

“As was mine,” Phil replies.

“You were in the Isle of Man; how was that rubbish?” Dan asks, laying his head on his pillow as he stirs his shake with his straw.

“Because I knew you were back here in hospital,” Phil replies.

“Pfft; I’m in here all the time.”

“I know,” Phil responds. “But I missed you and wished you were there with me or that I was back here with you.”

“I would _much_ rather prefer the former,” Dan says, taking a sip of his shake. His eyes roll to the back of his head as he smiles happily “My God, I miss having the much sugar in my life.”

Phil laughs, sticking his tongue out between his teeth. “Maybe it was a bad idea giving you this,” he says.

“Never. No. Do not take this away from me. I’ve been deprived of this goodness for far too long,” Dan responds, his mouth slightly full of shake. “They don’t give me this stuff here. I miss it so much.”

“I think they don’t give it to you for a good reason,” Phil replies.

“I could have these for the rest of my life and be happy.”

“You would probably die rather quickly,” Phil says.

“But I would be content,” Dan retorts. He holds out the cup for Phil to take, and Phil sets it over on the nightstand. “Now, whatever, back to the main topic. How was your trip?”

“I already said: it was rubbish without you.”

Dan slaps Phil’s shoulder. “No, be serious. How was it really?”

“Rubbish without you.”

Dan rolls his eyes and sets his cheek down on Phil’s shoulder. “You can’t be serious. You were in the Isle of Man for a whole _week_ and it wasn’t at least a _little_ bit fun?”

Phil smiles and sighs. “It was nice, I guess. Being with my family and all that. And it was beautiful, since we were on the shoreline.”

“See? Positivity.”

“Says the most pessimistic person on the face of the planet,” Phil retorts, nudging Dan’s shoulder.

“I’m not _that_ pessimistic.”

“Dan, you are literally the most pessimistic person I have ever met in my entire life.”

“I’m not _that_ bad.”

Phil rolls his eyes and smiles. “Anyway, yes, it was quite nice and I enjoyed my time there, and seeing my grandparents was nice. Are you happy with that response?”

Dan nods his head. “Yes, I am. Now we can get to kissing again.”

Phil sputters and starts laughing, burying his head in Dan’s neck. Dan laughs along as well, realizing how needy and weird he sounded by saying that, but neither of them hesitate to spend the rest of Phil’s visit kissing and cuddling, their Shakeaways slowly melting as they were left neglected on Dan’s nightstand.


	28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

They had a whole week after Phil’s return before they were going to return to school for the second semester. For five of those seven days, Phil spent probably half of that over at the hospital with Dan. He was always over there when Dan’s parents were at work and his brother was over at his grandma’s house or at a friend’s house, so it was just time for him and Dan to be together alone.

Phil would sometimes sneak in food for Dan if Dan requested him to do so, joking that Phil was being too much of a bad influence and was manipulating Dan into thinking that sneaking food into the hospital was okay and that he shouldn’t be allowing Dan to eat food not from the hospital. But, they never got caught, but the nurse did give strange looks to Dan’s trash bin when she saw takeout food was in there.

But, for the time when Phil was over there, the two would just spend time talking or cuddling or kissing or whatever else. For three or four hours every day, that’s all they would do. And it was never boring; this whole new relationship was all brand-new to them. Nothing was boring; everything was so exciting to them.

Perhaps Phil is just being cheesy, or maybe he’s just a lovestruck idiot, but either way, he’s felt extremely, extremely happy with Dan over these past few weeks.

Like, of course he was happy being with Dan just as friends, as they just got along extremely well, almost in a scary way, and it was just nice and lovely having someone to connect with as well as he could with Dan; of course he connected with Louise and PJ on a strong level, which is why they’ve been able to stay such good friends for so long, but in an almost terrifyingly alarming rate of time, Dan and Phil were able to connect and become extremely good friends so quickly. It was amazing just how fast they were able to become friends.

And they had such an amazing time being friends; they just got each other so well and understood each other on some weird level that they would never fully be able to realize.

But it just feels a bit more “complete”, if you will, now that they have this romantic relationship put on top of it. There’s something special about it; something special that neither of them could fully comprehend, but it’s so amazing and wonderful all at the same time. Definitely neither of them are complaining.

But Dan has started taking into consideration how less often Phil has been hanging out with his friend group. Considering Phil is spending most of his time over at the hospital or back at his house, Dan has figured out that Phil probably hasn’t been giving his friend group as much attention as they normally should be getting from him; he hasn’t been talking about them as much, which is something that Dan thinks is due to Phil not being around them as much as he used to.

So, one bright January Saturday morning, the Saturday before Phil would be heading back to school (Dan was still going to be in the hospital for a few more days just to make sure he gets recovered well enough; but even then, he still has a few weeks’ worth of homework and final exams from the previous semester to make up, which doesn’t bode well for him academically), Dan suggested that Phil go hang out with his friends.

_“Hang out with my friends?” Phil asked, sounding confused as to why Dan would bring that up. Dan had just called him before Phil was about to head on his way over to the hospital to visit him. He was literally right about to walk out the door and go to the bus stop when Dan called him._

_“Yeah,” Dan responded. “Go see Louise and PJ and do something. I’ll be fine here by myself.”_

_Phil furrowed his eyebrows jokingly. “Trying to get rid of me, Howell?” he asked, trying to sound menacing, though he knows Dan is just going to laugh at him._

_And that’s what Dan did: he laughed at him._

_“Yes, Phil: I hate your guts and I never want to see you in my life again,” Dan responded jokingly. “No, seriously, go see your friends and hang out or whatever. You’ve been spending all your time with me, and your friends are probably feeling neglected. You should go hang out with them for today.” He paused for a few seconds. “It’s not like I hate hanging out with you, because obviously I don’t; your presence is wonderful and I love it, but…you know, you’ve been seeing me all week, so I think you should go see some friends. I’m sure they would appreciate it.”_

_Phil chuckled. Dan did have a point: literally half of his time this break was spent over at the hospital with Dan. He hadn’t even contacted Louise at all after they set up Dan’s Christmas decorations back on Christmas Eve except to wish each other a Happy Christmas on the actual day itself. They hadn’t hung out since before finals as well. Perhaps a visit with the old friend group would do him some good._

_“Alright, alright, I get what you’re saying,” Phil replied. “You don’t want to see me so that you can spend your entire day playing Pokémon, huh?”_

_“I wouldn’t say entire day, as I was going to have you come back over here once you were done with your friends so you can give me McDonald’s.”_

_Phil scrunched up his nose and laughed. “Ah, I see: making me feel good by having me hang out with my friends so I can get you fast food. I see how it is.”_

_“I was craving chicken nuggets. Don’t judge me.”_

_Phil chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re going to be owing me a lot for all these things I’m doing for you, Howell.”_

_“Well, it looks like I’ll just be taking you out on a lot of dates once I get out of this hell-hole, Lester,” Dan responded in a similar tone._

_Phil laughed. “You’ll buy the first date? And what will we be doing for that?”_

_“Haven’t worked it out yet, but I’ll knock you off your feet.”_

_Phil smiled at that, feeling his heart grow warm. “You already have; no need for that,” he said. He looked up at the time on the clock in the living room. “Alright, well while I’m hanging out with Louise and Peej and while you’re trying to catch up to where I am in Pokémon-“_

_“Fucking shut up, man.”_

_“-you think about what we’re going to be doing for our first date. And I’ll text you when I’m picking up your McDonald’s to make sure you are completely sure of your decision.”_

_Dan laughed at that, the sound like music to Phil’s ears. “Of course. And I’ll always be completely sure of my decision to have McDonald’s, even if their meat is made from, like, pink goo or whatever that fake-ass video was.”_

_“Sounds good to me…well…not the pink goo, I mean. I mean about the plan.”_

_Dan laughed even louder at that, and Phil definitely couldn’t hide his smile at that. “You absolute, complete nincompoop. Why the fuck do I associate myself with you?”_

_“I’m surprised by your decision as well_.”

So, after a few more minutes of harmless flirting, the two finally got off the phone, and Phil got on his bike and headed on his way over to Louise’s house, knowing PJ would be over there as well; for all winter breaks before this one, the three of them, occasionally also with Caspar and Joe and some of their other friends, would be over at Louise’s house, as she has a huge basement, and they would spend the entire break binge-watching movie series and TV shows together, play board games or video games, or just sit and talk for countless hours.

But, considering Phil hasn’t seen them for quite some time, the two definitely looked surprised when Phil knocked on the door.

“Uh…hey,” he says, waving awkwardly, as he didn’t know what else to do.

“Um…hi,” Louise replies, also just as awkward, but probably just to make fun of him.

Phil clears his throat. “Um…is it okay that I’m here?”

“Why…why wouldn’t it be?” PJ asks.

Phil shrugs his shoulders. “We haven’t hung out all break.”

Louise and PJ both look at each other for a few seconds, and then turn back to Phil. “That doesn’t mean anything,” Louise says, smiling at him. “We’re the Three Musketeers.”

“Even though there were actually four,” PJ adds, Louise slapping his shoulder afterwards.

Phil laughs. “So…I’m good to come in?” he asks. “And…and hang out for a bit?”

“As long as you have a show that we can binge,” Louise says. “We’ve been debating for the past thirty minutes over what we want to watch.”

“ _Buffy_?” Phil suggests, smiling sheepishly.

Louise and PJ both slump their shoulders. “For God’s sake Phil, we have the rule of every two years, not every two months…”

\-----------------------------------------

He hung out at Louise’s place for a solid three hours, Louise and PJ reluctantly agreeing to let Phil have his way for them to re-watch _Buffy_ for the billionth time, agreeing to watch a later season, as they have all definitely seen the first season approximately ten-hundred thousand times (all thanks to Phil), but, even Phil has to admit, they spent most of their time talking.

Of course Louise had to go and mention Dan, asking Phil how he is and what he’s been up to, and Phil is sure the blush on his face gave it all away, instead of his timid “he’s good” answer. Louise and PJ both raised their eyebrows, not necessarily believing that small of an answer, but they took it anyway and didn’t ask anymore.

Like Phil said previously: Dan and him are just going to keep it between themselves for a bit and not tell everyone; it’s just for them for now, but he’s sure that soon, they’re going to want to be telling everyone. But because it’s so new to them, it’ll just be between them.

After the three hours passed, Phil headed off to a nearby McDonald’s after texting Dan, double-checking that his decision of having greasy fast food instead of the caloric-controlled hospital food was what he wanted, and Dan, of course, agreed to the fast food.

So, after picking up Dan’s food, he headed back over to the hospital, snuck the food in under his coat, and went up to Dan’s room.

“You know, when it starts getting warmer and I don’t have to wear a coat to go out, I’m not going to be able to sneak food in for you if you’re in the hospital,” Phil tells him as Dan excitedly opens his box of an chicken nuggets.

He can see Dan smile when Phil brings up the thought of them still being together when it gets warmer out, but Phil doesn’t mention it, and neither does Dan. “But it’s so fucking worth it right now,” he says, taking a bite of his food. “Thank you so much.”

“You’ll owe me a first date for all of this,” Phil says, taking his seat on the edge of Dan’s bed, smiling at him.

“Just like how you owe me showing me your short films.”

“What do I owe you that for?” Phil questions, smiling at him.

Dan shrugs. “Just ‘cause.”

Phil rolls his eyes. “Well, I think a first date is necessary before I can even think about showing you those.”

Dan chuckles and nods his head. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ll get it,” he says. He sets down his nugget in the box. “Perhaps I’ll take you to the winter formal.”

The school just before finals, probably when Dan was still at school before he was in the hospital, began advertising their annual winter formal, which happens every year soon after everyone returns from winter break. Phil wanted to go last year, but Charlie had refused; he wasn’t the kind of person who wanted to go to a dance.

The thought of going with Dan, however, makes Phil’s heart warm: the thought of the both of them in matching tuxes, going to get a nice dinner beforehand, and slow dancing at the end of the dance, where it would feel like only the two of them were on the floor…it seems so wonderful.

“Perhaps,” Phil says, smiling.

“I’ll pay for tickets and dinner,” Dan suggests. He shakes his head. “But I won’t give you a poster.”

Phil frowns. “No asking me to the dance with a punny poster?”

“Not a million years,” Dan responds.

Phil pauses, a cheeky smile forming on his face. “How about I give you a poster?” he asks. “I’ll ask you to the dance in a funny way, and then you pay for dinner and tickets.”

“ _Phil_ , I don’t want a punny poster.”

“Come on! I have great puns!”

“Phil, they’re so cringey!”

“I’m a cringey guy!” Phil exclaims. “Come on; it’ll be perfect!” He pouts out his bottom lip. “Pwease, Dan? Let me ask you to the dance with a pun?”

Dan rolls his eyes at him, but he still smiles. “Fine,” he replies, causing Phil to say “yes” under his breath, then reaching over to press dozens of little kisses all across Dan’s face, causing him to laugh.

“But…but it needs to be good!” he exclaims through his laughter. “Otherwise…otherwise you’re on your own!”

Phil ends his rampage of kisses by pressing one final one on Dan’s lips. “It’ll be good. I promise.”

“Whatever,” Dan replies before pressing another kiss on Phil’s lips just for added measure.


	29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Ah, the stale air of the school halls,” PJ sings as he, Phil, and Louise walk through the familiar double-doors of their secondary school.

It’s the following Monday, meaning the brand-new beginning of a semester in year twelve for them. The only thing on their minds being “I wonder who I’m in my classes with this semester” and “how many days until spring break”.

The halls are packed with all their fellow peers, all of them talking loudly about their winter breaks, talking about holidays that people went on, what people got for Christmas, what people did, who people talked to, everything under the sun. Lockers were being opened for the first time in a few weeks, and fresh notebooks and binders were being stacked inside.

The beginning of a brand-new semester: what a familiar feeling.

Dan is still in hospital, unfortunately, and he probably will be at least until the end of the week; he has chemo on Wednesday, and they’re trying out the same treatment that he had on Christmas Eve and on the third of January, and for fear of it not working like it did the previous times, they’re probably going to keep him in the hospital until Friday.

And, even then, his first few weeks back are going to be absolutely miserable; he’ll have to make up some work and tests and his finals from when he was gone the previous term, while also having to juggle the work he’s now going to have to deal with during this brand-new semester.

And it’s rough, now that Phil isn’t his tutor anymore and has been basically banned from being allowed to tutor because of his failure to turn in the required materials, as now Phil isn’t allowed to bring Dan home his homework; he can tell Dan about it, he can inform him what they did, but he can’t bring textbooks or worksheets or anything of that kind to Dan during this week that he’s going to be gone.

And that really sucks, and it almost makes Phil almost wish that he hadn’t said he wasn’t going to be Dan’s tutor anymore, but looking back on it, it was all for the better, even if it does mean that Dan is going to have an ass-load of homework to make up when he gets back from hospital and recovery.

Anyway, after printing off their new schedules for the year, Dan and Phil are pleased to know that out of their eight classes, they will have four of them together, which honestly is something that Phil never thought would make him so excited; but knowing that once Dan starts getting a little bit better and will be allowed by his parents to return to the classroom and that they’ll be in the same one for half of the day just makes Phil want to smile so widely.

He also has a majority of his classes with his other friends as well, which is as amazing as always; they’ll have their own little group to sit in, just as they always do, and they’ll surely be an annoyance to their fellow classmates because of how much they’ll be talking to each other. But it’s whatever; they should all honestly be used to it by now.

But Phil has to admit: even though, yes, he’ll have his friend group with him for this week and he’ll be able to be with them and talk with them, he feels a slight emptiness knowing that Dan isn’t going to be here for probably another week or so, depending on chemo and if his mum decides to let him come to school, even if he has been discharged from the hospital. He feels weird about that for some reason.

It’s probably just him being in a new relationship and wanting to be with the other person at all times, never wanting to leave their side or whatever, but hopefully Phil will survive and won’t be just a lovesick idiot the entire time Dan isn’t there with him. Phil is capable of being on his own, even though his constant need to look at his phone to see if Dan texted him a new meme of some kind or some kind of message written out in emojis is there waiting for him every time he turns on his phone.

But he’ll be fine. He swears he’ll be fine.

He’ll be seeing Dan after school; it’s not like they’re going to be completely apart for the entire week. Phil is literally going to go see him after school today, the second the final bell rings. Why does he feel like this? There’s no point in it-

“Earth to Philip?” Louise asks, snapping her fingers in front of Phil’s face, causing Phil to blink rapidly and get out of his dazed state. He looks over to see Louise and PJ staring at him, the three of them still walking down the hall.

“What?” he questions, running a hand through his hair.

“You were zoning out, mate,” PJ says. “What were you thinking about?”

Phil shakes his head and smiles, looking down at the ground. “Nothing,” he answers simply.

The proud smiles on PJ and Louise’s faces when he looks up let him know that even they don’t believe Phil when he says that.

But, just like always recently, they don’t say anything about it; they just switch the topic and move on.

\---------------------------------------

The first day of classes after break went by slowly, just as they always do. It’s always the boring “welcome to the final semester of the school year, here is the syllabus, and we’re going to read through the entire thing word-for-word and take the entire class period to do so, and then we’ll assign you twenty-thousand pages of reading tonight even though it’s your first day back and you’re not used to having homework after having three weeks off or whatever”.

The entire school day, Phil was either glancing at the clock for the time or on his phone for a text from Dan. He nearly got in trouble with his geography teacher when he was texting Dan in the middle of class.

 **Dan**  
help im bored and need someone to save me  
(10:32)

 **Phil**  
Help I’m bored and need someone to save ME  
(10:33)

 **Dan**  
um excuse you  
(10:33)

i believe being in a hospital is far worse than being in school  
(10:33)

 **Phil**  
but I’m in geography :(  
(10:33)

The teacher is really boring >_<  
(10:33)

She talks like roz from Monsters, Inc.  
(10:34)

 **Dan**  
holy crap really  
(10:34)

do I have that class with you  
(10:34)

 **Phil**  
there’s an open spot right next to me that will be your future seat ^_^  
(10:34)

 **Dan**  
ill just be distracted by you the entire time  <3  
(10:34)

i literally wont pay attention to roz at all XD  
(10:34)

 **Phil**  
perhaps it was dangerous of me to leave the seat next to me open  
(10:35)

 **Dan**  
i meannnnn  
(10:35)

you are quite distracting lester  
(10:35)

“Philip Lester, please put your phone away; I don’t want to see any phones out in my class,” “Roz” tells Phil, causing him to jump in his seat, looking up from his phone to see the old woman staring at him.

Phil nods his head knowingly. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes, pretending to put his phone in his pocket. However, the second “Roz” turns back to the syllabus she has on her podium, Phil pulls his phone back out and sends a final text to Dan.

 **Phil**  
you are also quite distracting, Howell; you just got me in trouble with roz XD  
(10:36)

The rest of the day went by fine, with all the same things happening in the same classes, and when the final bell rang, Phil raced out to the parking lot, got his bike, and headed out on his way to the hospital without even taking a glance back at the school.

He’s pretty sure he made it to the hospital in record time. He passed by the receptionist, giving her a greeting (she always smiled and greeted Phil by name, considering how much Phil has been visiting recently), as well has greeted Dan’s nurse, who was walking out of Dan’s room when he made it up to his floor, and hastily walked into the room.

Phil hastily halted his greeting when he saw that Dan was fast asleep on his bed, laid on his side, his head facing the doorway. The blanket was brought up to his nose, one of his hands gripping the pillow. His laptop was at the foot of the bed, still opened, and his phone was on his nightstand, as if he had been looking at it before he went to bed.

Phil smiles softly at him; he looked the complete opposite of how he is when he’s awake; when he’s awake, he’s loud and energetic, full of enthusiasm. But here, right now, he looks so peaceful and calm, not having a bother in the world.

His chest and shoulders move lightly up and down as he breathes softly, and his eyelids twitch every now and again as he dreams. He looks so adorable, and Phil’s heart warms at the sight.

Instead of turning around and leaving, Phil walks over to his bedside. He drops his backpack to the floor and takes a seat on the chair that is still pulled up to the side of his bed. He scoots it closer, so his bony knees are pressed up against the side of it, getting close to Dan.

He reaches over tentatively, as if he could wake up Dan, and places a hand on Dan’s cheek, feeling the soft skin. He feels Dan almost relax into his hand, and Phil rubs his thumb gently up and down his cheekbone. He smiles as he watches Dan breathe steadily and comfortably, settling into his pillow and continuing to sleep, as if Phil’s hand isn’t there.

He looks so at peace, so comfortable. Phil knows he probably looks kind of creepy, just sitting here, watching Dan sleep, but just seeing him this way, so unlike how he is when he’s awake, is something that Phil could stare at all day. It’s such a different side of Dan that Phil hadn’t even thought existed before; he just looks so peaceful. Phil could just look at him all day.

Eventually, Phil lifts his hand to Dan’s hair, careful not to settle his fingers in too deeply, for fear that more of Dan’s hair could fall out. Dan has been struggling with his hair loss, due to the many bald spots that have been created due to his chemotherapy, but the curls at the front of his head are still there; just a few spots at the back of his head are bare, and a lot of his hair has just thinned out quite a bit, even more than it was at the beginning of his treatment.

He knows that Dan is going to be struggling extremely hard with this when he comes back to school, as he knows he’ll get a lot of stares once again because he’ll be covering up his hair loss with his hats, but Phil hopes that Dan will learn to accept this change; Phil knows it’s hard for Dan, as it would be for anyone dealing with something like this, but it’ll take some time for him to get used to it.

And Phil has to admit: Dan looks incredibly cute in beanies.

Phil reaches over and presses a small kiss to Dan’s forehead, followed by one on his nose, and then one where his dimple is. He pulls back and hears Dan mumble something in his sleep before settling back into his pillow, burying half his face in the white fabric.

Phil smiles to himself. There is no way someone can be this adorable while they’re sleeping. He can’t help but reach over and kiss his chin as well, brushing his curly fringe out of his face.

He feels the three words on his tongue, and he dares to test them, to say them out loud right now, where Dan can’t hear him, but he doesn’t feel like it would feel as special unless he was saying it to Dan’s face while he was awake.

And it’s too soon, he feels; in time, perhaps, when they’re relationship grows more and develops more. He is excited for the day when he can let those words slip out, excited to hear Dan’s response to the phrase. But, for now, it’s far too early to say.

So, he keeps them in the back of his mind and just thinks it to himself.


	30. Chapter Thirty

“Remember that tickets for the winter formal go on sale next week, so make sure you get yourself a date!” one of the student council members says over the intercom during morning announcements.

It’s the next day, and Phil is situated in his first period class, his second semester of Anatomy and Physiology (he said English Composition was the worst class to have first period, but now he changes his mind: this, this class right here, is the worst one to have first period), listening to morning announcements.

Of course, as Dan mentioned to Phil before school started up again, the winter formal is coming up, meaning loads of pictures of people asking other people to the dance are going to be flooding social media, the tickets that are going to be on sale are far too expensive, girls are going to be getting spray tans because they think it looks attractive to have their bodies colored orange, and surveys for what the music should be are going to be going out but not listened to (as in the people running the music aren’t going to listen to what the heck you have to say about what music is being played at the formal).

Phil has established that, yes, he is going to be coming up with some way to ask Dan to the formal. Phil has never asked someone to a dance, nor has he ever been asked, so he hasn’t exactly had any ideas yet, nor has he really bothered to look.

He knows loads of people have started asking already; he’s seen all the pictures flood his social media accounts.People began asking people to the dance during winter break, but some started asking yesterday as well. 

Wirrow has asked Bryony, Alfie has asked Zoe, Louise has been asked by a guy she’s had a crush on called Liam, and PJ has been talking about asking this girl called Sophie, whom he’s been crushing on for quite some time.

They all, of course, were asked or asked other people with cheesy puns that they probably got from Pinterest or from googling “Promposals” and looking at the first five images that popped up. Phil swears he’s seen “Formal would be unBEARable without you” at least ten times in the past three days alone.

But, he shouldn’t be judging: he needs to come up with a proposal of his own.

So, after that intercom message went off, Phil enlisted the help of Louise to help him come up with some kind of proposal for Dan, knowing she would be a lot better at this than him.

“I think it’s adorable that you’re asking Dan to formal!” Louise exclaims. They’re in her car after school heading over to her house to hang out and do homework together.

Dan is currently being visited by his grandmother, so Phil was going to stop by after she was done visiting to bring Dan some food (because, even though Dan owes Phil at least ten million dates by now based on how much food he requests Phil to bring, he keeps begging Phil to sneak food into the hospital). Dan does want Phil to meet his grandmother soon, however, probably even before Dan formally introduces Phil as his boyfriend or whatever it is he is to his immediate family.

So, while he’s with his grandmother, Phil has decided to ask Louise to help him come up with this proposal, where they can hopefully come up with a solid idea during this time, and Phil can actually make the poster and get the materials later in the week, where then he can ask Dan formally to the formal.

And together, they’ll get to go to the dance. Phil doesn’t know exactly how it’ll work, if they’ll try and say to Mrs. Howell that they’re studying together, just as they’ve done in the past for everything else they’ve done together, but Phil isn’t sure if Mrs. Howell is now aware that Phil isn’t Dan’s tutor anymore, or if she won’t believe that they’ll be studying, considering how long they’ll be out.

Because, considering it’s a dance, which involves taking photos, going to dinner, and then the dance itself and potentially going to an after party, that’s going to be way longer than anything else they’ve done in the past together, managing to get away with just saying they’re studying. They know it’s going to be a long-shot, being able to say “hey, from, like, five until midnight on a Saturday, we’re going to be studying for some  _huge_  exam on Monday” is going to sound pretty weird.

And then there’s also the whole thing of getting tuxes, getting dinner reservations somewhere, and also dealing with the pictures being everywhere on social media, where mums are going to be sharing their children’s pictures, meaning Dan and Phil are bound to show up somewhere on Mrs. Howell’s Facebook page.

So, they haven’t necessarily worked out the details for that, and they know that’s a really huge part of this whole situation, but Phil is sure they’ll figure something out, whether it be trying to convince Mrs. Howell that they’re going to be studying for seven hours straight or whether it be trying to convince Mrs. Howell that Dan is well enough to go to a dance as  _well_  as going to a dance with another guy.

They’ll figure it all out. It’s going to be great either way.

But Phil just needs to find some way to ask Dan.

Phil chuckles at Louise’s response. “Is it?” he asks, furrowing his eyebrows. It almost seems like he’s pretending that he and Dan aren’t dating, but he’s also subtly being like “yeah, we are together”. It’s confusing in a way, but he doesn’t want to be the kind of person, he thinks, who just up and tells his friends “yo, me and Dan are dating”. He likes the almost mystery of their relationship status. But obviously he knows Louise and PJ think something is up.

Louise nods her head. “I think that’s great,” she responds. “I’m sure he would absolutely love it.”

Phil smiles. “Hopefully,” he responds, looking out the window, watching the other passing cars. “I just need to figure out some way to do it. How did Liam ask you?”

“He gave me some flowers and some sign that said flowers are the second most beautiful thing and that I was the first or something like that,” she replies. “I can’t remember it; I threw the sign away.”

Phil snickers. “So all this work I’m going to be putting into a proposal is going to get thrown away?” he asks.

Louise smiles and shrugs her shoulders. “Hey, at least I kept the flowers,” she responds, slowing the car down at a red light. “But, anyway, what are you thinking for a proposal?”

“I can’t really think of anything,” Phil replies, looking over at Louise. “I want to do a pun of some kind, but I don’t want it to be, like, something overdone or anything. I want it to be original.”

“Pfft, that’s basically impossible for me to just come up right off the top of my head,” she says. She shakes her head. “Well, what are some things that Dan likes? What things is he into?”

“Acting,” Phil answers. “Video games, YouTube, music.”

“Okay, so try and come up with a pun for those things,” Louise instructs. “What kind of acting is he into? Movies?”

“He likes theater.”

“So come up with some kind of theater pun and make a poster that looks like a Playbill or something.”

“I don’t know much about theater, though,” Phil replies. “I like theater, yeah, but not enough to be able to make a quality pun or anything.”

“Okay, so we move on to the next thing. Video games, was it?”

Phil nods his head.

“So…like, cut out a poster in the shape of a controller and write something like…um…’stop playing around and go to formal with me’.”

Phil scrunches up his nose in disgust and shakes his head rapidly. “No, I don’t like that,” he disapproves. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people do that one before. I don’t like it. What about music? What could I do for that?”

“Does he play music or listen to it?”

“He plays piano, but he claims he’s really bad at it. He listens to a lot of music, though,” Phil notes as the light turns green. Louise presses her foot on the accelerator and drives the car forward, continuing on their journey back to her place.

“Hmm…okay, so…how about something like ‘I hope it’s not any  _treble_ , bu-‘”

“I’m going to stop you right there because I know for  _certain_  I’ve seen two people get asked with that same pun already,” Phil interrupts, shaking his head at the idea. He loves that Louise is trying to help him, but he needs some fresh, original puns in order to ask Dan to formal.

Louise huffs and smiles hopelessly at her friend. “My boy, you are quite the difficult one, aren’t you?” she asks, shaking her head. “Most guys just pick the first promposal they see on the internet and roll with it. You’re the pickiest I’ve seen so far.”

Phil sighs. “Well, it’ll be Dan’s first dance since he was diagnosed, so…I want it to be-“

“Perfect, and I understand that,” Louise replies. “I’m just messing with you, Philip; don’t worry. I know you want nothing but the best for Dan. And I think that’s really sweet.” She quickly glances over to smile at Phil before turning her head back towards the road. “So, is he going to be well enough to go to the dance by then? He hasn’t been at school for quite some time; he wasn’t here for the longest time before finals, wasn’t he?”

“He got really sick after that one house party in mid-November,” Phil explains. “Alcohol didn’t settle right with his medication, and it’s gotten him really sick. He’ll be discharged from the hospital hopefully at the end of this week, and we’re sure he’ll be fine to go to the dance itself by the time it rolls around unless some kind of sickness decides to hit the school.”

Louise nods her head knowingly. “He has leukemia, right?” she asks.

Phil nods his head as he looks out the window. “Indeed he does,” he answers.                                                    

The car falls silent as Phil continues to imagine himself with Dan at the dance. He imagines the final dance, when all the couples go out to some cheesy slow song. He’ll grab Dan’s hand and lead him to some secluded corner of the gymnasium floor, and they’ll hold each other close as they sway to the beat in their weak attempt of slow dancing.

Dance.

Dancing.

Dancer…cancer…

Dancer rhymes with cancer…

Phil’s eyes widen as an idea pops into his head.

“Lou, do you have poster board at your house?” he asks, not looking away from the window.

“Yeah,” Louise answers. “Why?”

“I think I just came up with something,” Phil says, smiling widely.

Dan is going to burst into laughter when he sees what Phil’s idea is: Phil knows this for  _sure_.


	31. Chapter Thirty-One

Phil knocks on the door of Dan’s hospital room on a Thursday afternoon, far later than Phil is used to coming in.

Dan had previously informed Phil what time his parents come and visit during the weekdays: they always visit after they get off of work at around six or seven, depending on their schedules, an hour or two after Phil leaves to go back home.

But, he told Dan he was going to be coming in later this Thursday afternoon, but never specified that he was, indeed, planning on coming in when he knew Dan’s parents were going to be in.

So, when he hears Dan say “come in”, prompting Phil to open the door, he isn’t surprised when he sees Dan’s, as well as his parents’, confused expressions when he steps into the doorway of the hospital room, holding a bright neon yellow poster board sign, the only color Louise had available at her house, and a bouquet of orange carnations.

Dan furrows his eyebrows when he sees Phil standing there in his room. “Uh…hey, Phil,” he says, though it sounds more like a question than a statement.

“Hey,” Phil responds, with a warm smile, then turning his head to see Mrs. Howell and, for the first time, Mr. Howell, who looks hard-faced and stern, just as Dan always described him to be. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Howell.”

“Hello, Phil,” Mrs. Howell responds, looking just as confused as Dan, for obvious reasons. It certainly looks weird to have a giant poster and a bouquet of flowers just randomly, unannounced.

“What are you doing here?” Dan asks, looking over at him. “You said you were coming in later.”

“It is later,” Phil replies. He turns to Mr. and Mrs. Howell. “I normally come in right after school to see Dan.”

“So we’ve been told,” Mr. Howell replies, his arms folded behind his back. “You’re Daniel’s friend?”

Phil smiles and nods his head. “I am,” he responds. He looks at Dan and grins.

Dan blushes a light pink at Phil, and he can’t help but smile at his boyfriend’s stupid politeness towards his parents. “He is,” he says to his parents.

“You’ve talked about him before, haven’t you Daniel?” Mr. Howell asks.

Dan blushes even more, and looks as though he wants to bury himself in his blankets or in his oversized hospital gown, and he just nods his head. “I, uh…I have,” he answers nervously, looking at Phil through his peripheral vision. Dan clears his throat awkwardly and looks back over at Phil. “Um…what brings you here, Philly? What’s with the flowers and what’s on the poster board?”

“Oh, these?” Phil asks. “These are for you, Dan.”

Dan’s eyes widen, and it seems as though it clicks in his head just what Phil is doing.

When Dan doesn’t speak up, and neither do Dan’s parents, Phil smiles. He sets the flowers to the side, setting them on a vacant chair, and then turns the poster board around, revealing what it says to Dan, making it at an angle to where only he can read it, not his parents.

In bold letters that Louise wrote, it reads:

_I know you’re busy fighting CANCER, but perhaps you can take a break to be a DANCER with me at formal?_

Dan takes a few seconds to read what it says on the poster board, and his parents try and peer over to try and see what is on it, but Phil keeps moving it so only Dan is allowed to read it first.

Dan covers his mouth with his hands and starts laughing loudly when he gets the joke, which definitely causes Phil to start laughing as well, just seeing his reaction. Mr. and Mrs. Howell both give confused expressions, not understanding what is making their son laugh so loudly.

Dan nods his head rapidly, and he pulls the covers off his lap, getting up from his spot on the bed. “Yes, of course, you freaking idiot, oh my God,” he exclaims, going over to Phil to give him a hug, which Phil quickly reciprocates, dropping the sign to his side.

Mrs. Howell furrows her eyebrows. “What is going on?” she asks.

Phil looks up at Mrs. Howell and smiles, Dan still clinging onto him, smiling widely. “I would like to take your son to the winter formal,” he informs them, keeping one arm wrapped around Dan’s middle. Dan’s head is resting on his shoulder as he continues to laugh at the joke, his shoulders shaking with the laughter.

“Winter formal?” Mr. Howell asks as if wanting an explanation for what it is.

Phil nods his head. “It’s the school dance right after winter break. It’s in a few weeks’ time,” he explains. “And I was hoping that I could take Dan as a date to the dance.”

“Which I would love to do,” Dan adds, looking up at Phil with a look of fondness.

“A date?” Mrs. Howell questions.

Dan nods his head.

“We would take pictures with the group we would be going with, and then we’d have our own dinner somewhere, and we’d go to the dance right after,” Phil explains. “And I can have him back at your home at any time you wish.”

“If he’s even home from the hospital by that time,” Mrs. Howell sneers, shaking her head.

“Doc said I would be discharged tomorrow, though,” Dan reminds them, looking over at them. “So I wouldn’t be in the hospital when the dance happened. I don’t think it’s happening on a chemo day.”

“Still, Daniel, you have returned to school by then, and you would probably get very ill; you know what happened at the beginning of the school year,” Mr. Howell reminds him. “You might not be well enough to go.”

“I would _make sure_ I was well enough to go,” Dan retorts. He lets go of Phil slightly and looks at his parents with a pleading look in his eyes. “You guys, please; I really want to go to the dance with Phil. You can’t just predict that I’m going to be ill the day of the dance and can’t go.”

“Daniel, you know how this works; the second we bring you back into an environment full of people with germs, you get sick.”

“But the chemo they’ve been using recently has been working really well.”

“Daniel, please don’t fight this,” Mrs. Howell tells him, shaking her head. She turns her attention to Phil and gives him a look of sadness, though even Phil knows it isn’t entirely true. “I’m sorry, Phil, but I don’t think Dan is going to be able to go to the d-“

“Mum, can you for once look past my fucking cancer and listen to me for once?” Dan interrupts, separating himself from Phil, stepping closer to his parents.

His mum has a shocked expression. “Daniel, do not use that kind of lan-“

“I don’t give a fuck!” Dan shouts. “I really, really don’t! You’re not bothering to listen to me, and you never listen to me, and I’m getting really fucking tired of it!” He lets out a deep breath, and Phil makes a point to step back, not wanting to get in Dan’s way. He holds tightly to the poster board and bites his bottom lip, wondering if this was a good idea to do this when Dan’s parents were around.

But he didn’t want to keep lying, so it felt like the right thing to do.

“All you guys do is bring up that I’ll get sick from something, or that there’s a high possibility that I’ll get sick, and I’m fucking tired of it. That’s all you think about; it’s almost like you guys don’t see me as a person anymore; you only see me as a walking, talking cancer cell. It’s like I’m not even a human being to you guys anymore.”

“Daniel-“

“No, _listen for once in your lives_ ,” Dan interrupts. He rakes his hands through his hair angrily, not even bothering when pieces of hair fall out. “Ever since I was diagnosed, you guys have been treating me like I’m just this porcelain doll that’s going to fucking shatter into a million pieces the second you bring me down from the shelf, and I’m tired of it. You guys aren’t letting me be a normal person. It’s, like, the second I get even a _smidgen_ of a fever, you guys are locking me up in my bedroom and not letting me leave. You guys aren’t letting me live like a normal person.”

Dan circles around once, rubbing his forehead. “For Christ’s sake, for the past few months, Phil and I have had to lie to you, telling you we’re going to study just so I can go do things that you guys would _never_ dream of me doing because I have _fucking cancer_. I had to lie to you just so I could go to a _school play_. A _school play_. You guys would’ve fucking _murdered_ me if I had asked you if I could go to that.”

Phil gulps nervously when Dan lets this piece of information slip out. It certainly sounds suspicious, and now Dan’s parents are giving him weird glances, and Phil isn’t necessarily sure how he feels about it, but he lets Dan continue to speak.

Dan groans and shakes his head. “Just…just let me be me for once. I haven’t felt like ‘me’ around you guys in the longest time. I’m, like, walking on fucking eggshells around you guys because all you guys see is this person with cancer, when really, I’m still the same Dan. I’m still your son, but I haven’t felt like that in the longest time. And if you would just…would just let me be a teenager for once…that would be all I would need.”

He sighs and turns around, looking back at Phil. Phil smiles at him proudly. Dan spoke so eloquently and spoke exactly what was on his mind, and Phil couldn’t be prouder of him. He wished he could tell him that out loud, but this is a conversation between Dan and his parents, not one for Phil to jump in on.

Dan turns back around and looks at his parents. The room falls into silence, no one daring to speak up yet. Dan stares at his parents, waiting for any kind of response from them, but it looks as though they are both collecting their thoughts, processing what Dan told them.

Obviously it’s a lot for them to take in, number one being learning what Dan has felt for these past, like, six months that he’s been dealing with his cancer. Obviously, Dan wasn’t ever one to share that with his parents, for fear that they wouldn’t understand. But now he’s gotten it off his chest, and now his parents know. And number two is that, obviously, he and Phil have been sneaking off to do things on their own that Dan’s parents would never dream of him doing. Obviously, that’s something they’re probably not going to be happy about, and they’re probably going to be wary of Phil and what he allows when he’s with Dan, but it’s something they know now that just proves how badly Dan wanted to be a normal person throughout these past few months.

Mrs. Howell lets out a long sigh and is the first one to speak up. “Daniel…I…I never knew you felt that way,” she says.

Dan shakes his head and slaps his hands to his sides. “I did,” he responds, his voice cracking slightly. Phil resists the urge to reach out and take his shoulder, holding it tight, but he doesn’t; this is Dan and his parents’ time. “I was miserable.”

Mrs. Howell looks back at Mr. Howell, who doesn’t look like he wants to say anything.

Dan sniffles, as though he’s about to cry, but he is blinking hastily, meaning he doesn’t want to in front of his parents. “You can trust me with Phil,” he tells them. “He knows what to do. He’s helped me when I needed him to. It’s not like I’m going to be alone.”

They look up at him, and Phil gives them a comforting smile, not knowing what else to do.

Mrs. Howell sighs again. “Daniel…I…” she looks at the floor, “I’m so sorry for the way we treated you. I was never aware that I was acting in that way or that I wasn’t being reasonable. I was just…” she looks off to the side, and she clears her throat. “Um…we’ll…we’ll…we’ll let you go to the dance with Phil, but…but if you’re sick when the time comes, we won’t allow it.” She looks up at Dan. “We’ll be more open to you doing more things, but…but if you’re ever sick, we’re not going to let it happen. But…for now, we’ll say that you are allowed to go to the dance with Phil.”

Phil can’t see Dan’s facial expression, but Phil knows that his own look is one of excitement and elation.

Before he can even hug or hold Dan, Dan rushes forward to his mum and wraps his arms around her, hugging her tightly.

“Thank you so much, Mum,” he whispers into her chest, just loud enough for Phil to hear from his spot against the wall.

His mum just nods, and shortly thereafter, Dan pulls away. Dan looks at his dad and nods his head before turning around to Phil.

“So, shall we get a picture up on social media?” he asks.

Phil raises his eyebrows. “You…you want to, even with the…?”

Dan nods his head. “I think people were going to find out anyway,” he says, gesturing to his hair.

Phil laughs. “Only if you want to, Dan,” he says, picking up the sign.

Dan walks over and wraps his arms around Phil’s middle again. “I want to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only one more chapter to go! i'm really sad that this story is almost over and gah i'm going to start crying bc it's my baby lol


	32. Chapter Thirty-Two

The formal came up rather quickly.

For the weeks leading up to it, Dan had returned to school with a bright smile on his face, his brain opened for learning, and always finding himself at Phil’s side.

He, of course, spent the first week of his return in the Student Success Center, completing all his homework and tests that he had missed from the previous semester, as well as finishing simplified homework assignments to get him caught up easier on this brand-new semester.

During his first week, he of course received plenty of stares from their fellow peers, and not just because Dan was rocking his beanie collection to class, but mostly because of the picture he and Phil had posted that Thursday evening that Phil had asked him to formal, which received a large number of likes and questioning comments when they posted it.

So, they were all aware that Dan had some form of cancer, but no one asked at all. No one asked Phil, either. They all knew it wasn’t their place to ask.

And people definitely became aware of Dan and Phil’s relationship status when they saw them constantly walking down the halls together or when they sat next to each other in every class they had together, their shoulders and arms pressed up and their heads always close together as they spoke in hushed tones to each other, constantly making each other blush and laugh.

And, of course, they knew when they saw Phil sporting an orange ribbon for leukemia on his backpack in support of Dan, and Dan’s facial expression when he saw that Phil had done that for him (and the hug in the middle of the hallway afterwards).

Dan also joined in on Phil’s friend group rather quickly.

Since Dan now had lunch the same time as Phil and his friend group, they all sat together at the same lunch table, Dan easily being able to slip into conversations with everyone, especially with Louise and PJ, which, of course, did not cease to make Phil smile like an idiot when he saw his boyfriend interact with his two best friends.

The four of them, and occasionally Caspar, Joe, and their other friends, would hang out sometimes after school to talk and to watch movies and shows, unless Dan and Phil wanted to hang out separately or in case they had loads of homework.

Speaking of homework, the Student Success Center tried to get Dan to sign up to have another tutor who wasn’t Phil, but Dan decided to opt out of it, even though the center tried to tell him that it was the best option for him, considering chemo treatments and medication changes were probably going to be happening a lot more often, especially since he was going to be moving to his second cycle of chemo soon.

But Dan continued to opt out of it, saying that if he ever needed help, he had other people there to help him out, like Phil or any of the other people in their friend group. The center wasn’t necessarily excited to hear that Dan didn’t want a tutor, but Dan’s grades still remained high, even with all the classes he had missed.

And, soon enough, the formal had arrived.

They decided to take the pictures at Phil’s house, so of course Kathryn and Nigel were very excited to be able to interact with Dan again, as it had been quite a while since they had last met.

Kathryn didn’t hesitate to rush over to Dan and give him a big hug, Nigel giving him a warm handshake afterwards. The three of them instantly started talking together, all speaking excitedly about how elated Dan was to be able to go to the formal with Phil and how his treatments were going well and school was progressing nicely.

Dan also got to meet Martyn for the first time, and they had a bit of an awkward first meeting, as Dan went in for a handshake, but Martyn went in for a “bro hug”, which caused a lot of confusion for Dan, but they figured it out in the end and laughed it off. Now Dan claims he has a fear of those weird handshakes.

Then it was pictures, which they awkwardly took on the porch of Phil’s house, where it was freezing cold because they were in the middle of January. But, it might’ve just been an excuse for Dan and Phil to huddle closely together for warmth.

They wore basically matching suits, with Dan’s being black with a navy bowtie and a matching beanie, and Phil’s suit being navy with a black bowtie. They both had orange flower boutonnieres, which Kathryn and Nigel got a ton of adorable pictures of the two of them awkwardly trying to pin them on each other’s suits, Kathryn having to come over and help Phil pin Dan’s at one point, but it all worked out in the end.

After that, they headed out on their way to dinner at a nearby restaurant, which Dan had booked for them and told Phil that this was going to technically be their first date, just as he had promised back at the beginning of the month.

It was a wonderful time at the restaurant, sitting and talking and eating food and just enjoying each other’s company. They split a dessert, and then quickly had to leave afterwards if they wanted to make it to the school by the time the doors opened for the dance; they definitely would’ve been at the restaurant for hours if they didn’t have the dance to go to.

But, they made it in time, also being able to take some pictures outside of the dance with their friend group and all of their dates. Afterwards, they made it inside and all huddled together, talking, laughing, and awkwardly dancing to the music that was being blasted from the speakers at the front of the gym.

The group disbanded about twenty minutes into the dance, as a few people wanted to run around and get pictures with other people, some people wanted to go dance with the main crowd in the middle of the gymnasium, and Dan and Phil wanted to, obviously, go check out the food table and see what was offered, even though they had just eaten a whole meal only half-an-hour prior.

They sat on the bleachers as they ate their plates of food, listening to the music and still just finding anything in the world to talk about with each other, the conversations flowing from one thing to the next like magic. Phil will still never fully be able to understand just how amazingly he and Dan can speak for hours on end, always finding something new and interesting to speak about.

They went around and talked with a few more of their friends after completing their plates of food, danced a bit more when some of their favorite songs came on, and would sit on the bleachers when songs they didn’t like played.

And, right at the end of the night, when the clock was about to strike ten, meaning the doors would be open for people to leave, the slow dance came on, with, just as Phil suspected, some extremely cheesy, generic love song playing over the stereos.

But, even though he didn’t necessarily approve of the music choice, he stood up from the bleachers and offered his hand to Dan.

“May I have this dance?” Phil asks in an overly posh voice.

Dan laughs and ducks his head, then nods. “Of course, my good sir,” he responds in a similar voice, taking Phil’s hand, intertwining their fingers.

Phil leads Dan out towards the center of the gymnasium, but still far away from the crowd so they could have their own space and be able to have their own conversation without fear of anyone overhearing. Phil wraps his arms around Dan’s waist, pulling him so their chests are touching, and Dan places his hands securely on Phil’s shoulders, right near his neck, to where his fingers could tangle with Phil’s hair.

“I’ve had a really fun time tonight,” Dan tells him, leaning close so their foreheads are almost touching.

“I have, too,” Phil responds. “I never thought I was a person who liked going to dances, but I guess the company changes everything.”

“Shut up, you spork.”

Phil smiles proudly and reaches to his shoulder, grabbing one of Dan’s hands in his. He holds it up and twirls Dan, who laughs like an idiot, causing a few people around them to look over, but neither Dan nor Phil care.

“You’re such a dork,” Dan whispers to him.

“You love it,” Phil responds without even thinking, his voice turning a bright pink when he hears Dan’s response.

“I do,” he says without a moment’s hesitation.

Phil’s heart flutters, and he can’t help but smile at this wonderful person he has in his arms. Dan leans down and rests his head on Phil’s shoulder, and Phil secures his arms tighter around his waist, holding him tightly as they sway back and forth to the music.

Phil rests his head against Dan’s, pressing a soft, simple kiss right below where his beanie rests. After, he looks up into the crowd, seeing his friends all dancing with their dates at different parts on the dance floor, his eyes falling upon…Charlie.

Charlie is dancing with another guy on the other side of the gym. He’s a guy that Phil recognizes from film; he’s really wicked smart, and he’s really good at editing, too. A good guy.

Charlie looks up at Phil, and the two share eye contact for a few seconds.

Instead of quickly looking away, like Phil would’ve done a few months ago, he gives Charlie a smile. A simple one: one of recognition.

And to his surprise, instead of sneering, like Charlie would’ve done a few months ago, Charlie smiles back.

“Hey,” Dan says, knocking Phil out of his daze. Dan is looking up at Phil with a wide grin.

“Yeah?” Phil asks, leaning his forehead against Dan’s.

“I forgot to tell you: I’m planning on auditioning for the spring play; auditions are in a few weeks, so I’m going to be preparing a monologue for it,” Dan says proudly, smiling widely at Phil.

Phil beams down at him and presses a kiss to Dan’s nose. “I’m so proud of you!” he whisper-exclaims. “You’re going to do great at it.” He kisses Dan’s eyelids for extra measure.

Dan laughs at the feeling of Phil’s lips. “Hopefully,” he replies. “I haven’t acted in such a long time, so I’ll be a little rusty, I’m sure.”

“But you’ll do fantastic! I can help you run lines, or I can even come to your rehearsals and watch if you want me to!” Or, more like because Phil wants to.

Dan snickers. “Phil, I don’t even know if I’ll get a part in it. There’s bound to be some stiff competition.”

“You’re going to get a part. I know it,” Phil responds confidently, kissing Dan’s cheekbone. He shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe I can have an excuse to be over there and work backstage? Like, be a techie? I used to do that all the time. Would be nice to do it again. Build up my theater skills for my future plans of being a director while you build up your theater skills for your future plans of being an actor.”

Dan smiles a toothy grin, and the light in his eyes shines brightly. “That would be amazing.”

Right as he says this, the clock strikes ten, meaning they can leave the dance if need be, or they can stay for another hour while people trickle out.

Phil leans his forehead against Dan’s. “What time do you have to be home?”

“Eleven-thirty,” Dan replies, rolling his eyes.

Phil bites his bottom lip. “Shakeaway closes at midnight.” Dan instantly rocks his head back, silently laughing. “We can head over there and get some shakes while we pick out a monologue for you. Then…if we have time, we can go out to the country and look at some stars?”

Dan smiles and can’t help but press a short, simple kiss on Phil’s lips. “How in the world did I end up with someone as wonderful as you?” he asks quietly, shaking his head.

Phil smiles and shrugs his shoulders.

“It happens.”


End file.
